The Rock

The ICJ decision on Pulau Batu Putih was a real eye-opener as to how a country could lose its territory by virtue of its own action and in this case inaction. Going by the written and verbal judgment made, we effectively 'surrendered' our sovereignty of BPB after 1980, the 1953 correspondence between the acting SS of Johor and the Colonial Secretary of Singapore notwithstanding. But the most damning points against us are the six maps published by the mapping and survey department which stated unequiviocally that BPB belongs to Singapore and the fact that we did not investigate or at the very least protested against Singapore investigating the shipping accidents in the vicinity of PBP until 2003, that too after much prompting. This according to the judges amounted to giving up our sovereignty. Perhaps they are right ... the ICJ like God works in mysterious ways. But twelve learned judges couldn't all be 'wrong'.

All is not lost though, like the Sipadan and Ligitan case, the judges were silent on who has jurisdiction of the water column and before anyone started claiming the 12 mile territorial sea or EEZ as PM Lee Hsien Loong did after the judgement, it should be recalled that Article 121 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulated that 'rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life on its own shall have no EEZ or continental shelf' and Batu Putih despite being called a 'pulau' does not qualify as one. Malaysia's position should be that Singapore won the rock on which sits a lighthouse and possible a 500 metre safety and security zone around it. No more. Hopefully our reps to the joint technical committee would not commit any more mortal sins of the sort that our forefathers in the Johore State secretariat and Mapping Department committed.

In the movie Gladiator, Maximus said "what we do in life...echoes in eternity" and in the Pulau Batu Putih case, we are now hearing the ecohoes of what some of us did in our country's past. It's time to wake up and smell the roses and not to wallow in self-pity. Our southern neighbour probably has contingencies up their sleeves and coming out of their ears as to what to do next. What about us?