MALAYSIA had missed its opportunity to exercise effective authority on Pulau Batu Puteh before losing the island to Singapore under an International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruling in 2008, P. Ramasamy said today.

He added that Malaysia had also failed to effectively challenge the idea of modern-day sovereignty by Singapore over Pulau Batu Puteh.

The Penang deputy chief minister also said that while the Johor sultanate had some form of sovereignty over the island, it however lacked effective control or the means of enforcement.

“Malaysia could have exercised effective authority on the island long before the matter turned into a dispute with Singapore.

“The trouble with Malaysia is simply that the country lacked proper maps of its territories in order to establish effective authority.

“It was only in 1979 that the boundary was redrawn to include Pulau Batu Puteh, the matter that propelled both the countries to go for arbitration,” he said in a statement.

The DAP leader said it was unfortunate that Malaysia, once a British colony, simply could not present a case that took into account the notion of sovereignty under different historical periods.

He also noted that the Johor sultanate’s exercise of sovereignty over territories such as Pulau Batu Puteh was different in comparison with British control of Singapore.

“De jure jurisdiction of the island might have been with Johor, but the British exercised de facto authority, in terms of access, control and management.

“I think the ICJ looked at the de facto concept in recognising Singapore’s sovereignty over the island.”

He said that in actual fact, the greater part of the authority on Pulau Batu Puteh was exercised by the British based in Singapore and not by an independent and sovereign state.

“Pulau Batu Puteh was lost on the idea of the sovereignty of the modern state.

“The central question before the panel of judges in the ICJ was which country – Singapore or Malaysia – had sovereignty over the rocky island of Pulau Batu Puteh.

“Johor, then a feudal state, had sovereignty on the island long before the appearance of the British.

“However, this version of sovereignty might have been different to the concept of the modern nation-state,” said the academic.

The debate over Pulau Batu Puteh was revived after Putrajaya announced last week the formation of a special task force to propose suitable options regarding the island, known as Pedra Branca in Singapore.

This came after claims were made that the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government had decided to withdraw Malaysia’s review application.

On May 9, 2003, Malaysia and Singapore agreed to submit their dispute over who has  sovereignty over Pulau Batu Puteh and two nearby maritime features, Middle Rocks and South Ledge, to the ICJ.

In 2008, the ICJ gave the sovereignty of Pulau Batu Puteh to Singapore. The court ruled that Malaysia owned Middle Rocks, while it refrained from awarding South Ledge to either country, stating that it belonged to the government in whose territorial waters it is located.

In July 2017, Malaysia also filed a separate application requesting the ICJ to interpret the 2008 judgment on Pulau Batu Puteh.

However, shortly after PH won the 2018 general election, prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad announced that Malaysia would accept the ICJ ruling and would not pursue the matter. – October 17, 2021.