On the status of features in the South China Sea, the Tribunal concluded that the following features include, or in their natural condition did include, rocks or sand cays that remain above water at high tide and were, accordingly, high-tide features: (a) Scarborough Shoal, (b) Cuarteron Reef, (c) Fiery Cross Reef, (d) Johnson Reef, (e) McKennan Reef, and (f) Gaven Reef (North). Also the following features are, or in their natural condition were, exposed at low tide and submerged at high tide and are, accordingly low-tide elevations: (a) Hughes Reef, (b) Gaven Reef (South), (c) Subi Reef, (d) Mischief Reef, (e) Second Thomas Shoal.

Scarborough Shoal, Johnson Reef, Cuarteron Reef, and Fiery Cross Reef, Gaven Reef (North) and McKennan Reef contain, within the meaning of Article 121(1) of the Convention, naturally formed areas of land, surrounded by water, which are above water at high tide. However, under Article 121(3) of the Convention, the high-tide features at Scarborough Shoal are rocks that cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own and accordingly shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.

The Tribunal further concluded that Mischief Reef and Second Thomas Shoal were both low-tide elevations that generate no maritime zones of their own. The Tribunal also concluded that none of the high-tide features in the Spratly Islands were capable of sustaining human habitation or an economic life of their own within the meaning of those terms in Article 121(3). All of the high-tide features in the Spratly Islands were therefore legally rocks for purposes of Article 121(3) and did not generate entitlements to an exclusive economic zone or continental shelf. Thus there was no possible entitlement by China to any maritime zone in the area of either Mischief Reef or Second Thomas Shoal. Mischief Reef and Second Thomas Shoal were held located within 200 nautical miles of the Philippines’ coast on the island of Palawan and were located in an area that was not overlapped by the entitlements generated by any maritime feature claimed by China. Thus as between the Philippines and China, Mischief Reef and Second Thomas Shoal form part of the exclusive economic zone and continental shelf of the Philippines.

Thus no maritime feature claimed by China within 200 nautical miles of Mischief Reef or Second Thomas Shoal constituted a fully entitled island for the purposes of Article 121 of the Convention and therefore that no maritime feature claimed by China within 200 nautical miles of Mischief Reef or Second Thomas Shoal had the capacity to generate an entitlement to an exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.