Tom Grant
In the photograph, I am holding the badge that I wore as Counsel for the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, which was an Observer State in the South China Sea Arbitration (The Republic of the Philippines v. The People's Republic of China). The UNCLOS Annex VII tribunal constituted for the case had decided that interested States would be given leave to attend the hearing as observers upon request, a novel approach to non-parties in an UNCLOS case and one with no exact precedent, to my knowledge, in previous PCA cases. The badge in the photograph is the second of two that I kept from the hearings. This one was for the hearing on the merits and remaining issues of jurisdiction and admissibility, which was held at the Peace Palace in the Hague in November 2015.