A Sea Change:Problematizing the “Gray Zone” in the South China Sea
Journal: US-China Law Review
Year: 2024

Throughout discussions of the geopolitical conflict in the South China Sea (SCS), analysts tend to shy away from using the term "armed conflict" to describe actions taken within the maritime domain.Analysts have relegated such actions to the "gray zone"; a legal ambiguity between the threshold reaching an armed attack and the threshold for reaching an armed conflict.This essay argues that the law of armed conflict (LOAC, commonly referred to as international humanitarian law or IHL) actively reg