Scope
The site curates research materials on maritime issues and the South China Sea (East Sea): peer-reviewed articles, books, book chapters, research reports, working papers, conference papers, theses, legal instruments, official documents and statements, and datasets. The subjects covered are listed under Topics.
Criteria for including a document
- Verifiable: it has a DOI or an official page from the publisher or issuing body, and its source information is checked before publication (see Methodology).
- Clear provenance: the author or issuing body, the venue and the year are known.
- In scope: it is research material relevant to the site’s topics.
What the site does not include
- News and press roundups.
- Documents of unknown origin or circulating without a clear source.
- Full-text copies or PDF files of third-party works (the site links to the original source).
Origin labels
Every entry carries labels for the source type, the country of the publishing body (or “intergovernmental/international”), and the kind of body: academic, independent think tank, state-affiliated, government, intergovernmental, or court/tribunal. The labels help readers judge a source for themselves; they are not a judgement of the content.
Sources from parties with overlapping claims
The site applies one rule to material from state bodies, or bodies attached to the state, of seven parties: Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Taiwan. For such sources, when the subject is political, legal, historical, security-related or diplomatic, the site accepts only:
- (a) an official instrument or statement of an official position; or
- (b) a peer-reviewed article in an international journal; or
- (c) a peer-reviewed article in a domestic journal listed in a recognised index (for example the scoring list of Vietnam’s State Council of Professors, CSSCI, TSSCI, SINTA, MyCite, ACI, Scopus, WoS). The index is shown on the document’s page.
The site does not include books, reports or commentary by state bodies on those subjects. Research on the environment, fisheries and the maritime economy by state institutes is included like any other source. These entries always carry origin labels. The list of seven parties is an editorial decision of the operator and will be updated on this page if it changes.
Time scope
Scholarly works, reports and books are included from 2000 onward. Primary instruments (treaties, laws, notes verbales, statements, awards) are included from any date.
Balance of sources
The site sets no fixed quota for any country. It measures and publishes the make-up of the collection in two ways: by the country of the institution where the author works and by place of publication. The home page shows the place-of-publication shares. The figures are for readers to judge for themselves; the site does not drop or add documents merely to adjust the shares.
Inclusion is not endorsement
Including a document only means it is in scope and verifiable. Views expressed in a document are the author’s; the operator’s own views, if any, appear only in the separately labelled assessment block.