If so you are misrepresenting it's legal status. It had no jurisdiction over China.
This article cited below depicts the Chinese position on the so called “arbitration” by the Permanent Court of Arbitration under the International Tribunal for Law of the Sea. Please refer to the article for a more complete description of the PCA's unsound assumption of jurisdiction and decision. The Chinese never acquiesced to PCA jurisdiction and the court's reasoning on jurisdiction is defective. Consequently, the decision is void.
The bottom line is there is no PCA/ITLOS jurisdiction over Chinese sovereignty claims:
…The overall obligation to submit to a compulsory conciliation procedure under 298(1)(a)(i) will however not apply in respect of a maritime boundary dispute which “necessarily involves the concurrent consideration of any unsettled dispute concerning sovereignty or other rights over the continental shelf or insular territory”.21 In other words, obligation contained in article 298(1)(a)(i) to submit a conciliation procedure is subject to three conditions: (i) the dispute should have arisen after the Convention entered into force; (ii) no agreement could be reached between the parties settling the dispute within a reasonable period of time; and (iii) that the dispute did not involve “the concurrent consideration of any unsettled dispute concerning sovereignty or other rights over continental shelf or insular land territory”.*
*The South China Sea Arbitration (The Philippines v. China): Assessment of the Award on Jurisdiction and Admissibility
Sreenivasa Rao Pemmaraju Author
Chinese Journal of International Law, Volume 15, Issue 2, June 2016, Pages 265–307, https://doi.org/10.1093/chinesejil/jmw019
Published: 20 June 2016 https://academic.oup.com/chinesejil/article/15/2/265/2548386
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