JAKARTA — ASEAN diplomats convened on Tuesday for what their counterparts describe, with the slightly weary precision of people who have done this many times, as the last significant unresolved chapter of the long-pending South China Sea code of conduct.

The talks have been running, in various forms, since 2002. The framing of any current round as a final stretch has been used and superseded several times. This time, the tone of the diplomatic correspondence in advance of the meetings has been narrower and more technical than at most previous rounds.

What is on the table

The chapter under discussion concerns dispute-resolution mechanisms — specifically, the question of which forums and procedures the parties to the code commit to use when disagreements arise about its application. The chapter is more practically consequential than its dry framing suggests; without it, the code is largely declarative rather than operational.

The negotiating positions on dispute resolution have been the most stubborn of the entire negotiation. ASEAN states have, with varying intensity, pushed for binding arbitration mechanisms. The principal counterparty has resisted any procedure that would in practice subject its claims to external review.

The compromise structure

The current draft, circulated quietly among delegations in advance of the meetings, proposes a compromise structure that includes consultation, mediation, and arbitration tracks of differing degrees of bindingness. Arbitration is available but is not the default; its activation requires specific findings that the earlier tracks have failed.

The compromise is the kind that no party regards as fully satisfactory and that all parties might, on a sufficiently pragmatic day, accept. Whether such a day will fall within the window of these meetings is the question the delegations are working on.

Where the resistance comes from

The principal sources of resistance to the compromise are visible. One ASEAN delegation has, in private, signalled it cannot accept any arbitration track that has not been formally endorsed by all parties — a condition the principal counterparty has indicated it will not provide.

The principal counterparty has, in turn, signalled it will not accept any structure in which the consultation track can be bypassed without specific procedural triggers that it has, in past iterations, drawn at thresholds that ASEAN states regard as impractically high.

What the larger powers are doing

The American, Japanese, and Australian governments have signalled support for the negotiations from a respectful distance, while making clear that they regard certain provisions of the current draft as the floor on what an acceptable code would contain. None of those governments is a party to the negotiations, and their position is, by design, expressed primarily through statements that ASEAN delegations may or may not find useful.

The Indian government has been more visible than at most past rounds, hosting two of the recent preparatory meetings and offering quiet assistance with the drafting language. India's interest is sometimes underestimated by analysts who treat the South China Sea as a regional issue; New Delhi treats the underlying maritime principles as elements of a broader Indo-Pacific framework that it has its own reasons to want stable.

The fishery dimension

The fishery questions that have, for a substantial portion of the affected populations, been the most consequential dimension of the underlying dispute, have been handled in the negotiations under a separate workstream that interacts with the dispute-resolution chapter only at specific seams.

The seams have, in recent rounds, become a source of difficulty. Several ASEAN delegations have argued that the fishery questions cannot be cleanly separated from the dispute-resolution chapter; the principal counterparty has insisted that they must be. The current draft attempts to thread the needle by providing for cross-referencing without merging the workstreams.

What happens if the chapter closes

If the chapter closes during the current round of meetings, the code will move to a final-drafting stage that will, even at a relatively brisk pace, take at least another year. The political signing will, in turn, depend on a separate calendar of summits whose alignment with the drafting timeline is approximate at best.

If the chapter does not close during the current round, the negotiations will continue. The pattern of progress has, for two decades, been more recursive than linear, and there is no reason to expect this round to break that pattern unless it does.