Fragmented Maritime Governance and Structural Economic Exposure

The South China Sea

Abstract

This article examines how legal fragmentation, institutional complexity, and minilateral cooperation interact to shape governance outcomes in the South China Sea, and how these dynamics generate indirect but consequential effects for structurally exposed external states. Drawing on a selective literature review, the article develops a triangulated analytical framework integrating international legal debates on fragmentation and plural authority, regime-complexity approaches to ASEAN institutionalism, and international political economy perspectives on structural exposure. Methodologically, it combines doctrinal analysis of UNCLOS and arbitral jurisprudence with comparative examination of ASEAN claimant and involved state practice and process tracing of key legal and institutional developments. The analysis shows that, in the absence of hierarchical enforcement, ASEAN states selectively internalise arbitral reasoning and coordinate legal positions through minilateral arrangements, producing incremental legal stabilisation despite persistent contestation. These practices do not resolve disputes but stabilise expectations of conduct within a fragmented maritime order. Extending the analysis beyond the region, the article demonstrates how legal uncertainty and partial stabilisation in the South China Sea propagate through global value chains, shaping economic vulnerability in non-participant states such as Hungary. The article develops a conditional, configurational analytical framework for examining how maritime governance outcomes emerge in fragmented legal orders and highlights the relevance of international legal stability for economically interdependent states embedded in global production networks.