Malaysia to claim Pedra Branca using unverified blog photos?

How ridiculous! The team from Malaysia comprising Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar, Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail and his son Federal Counsel Faezul Adzra Tan Sri Gani Patail had to resort to using a blog’s unverified photo of Pedra Branca (Right) to present their case to the judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), The Hague. Singapore’s Attorney-General Chao Hick Tin presented the photos and described it as “an attempt to convey a subliminal message of proximity between Pedra Branca and the coast of Johor”

To quote from the Straits Times dated 20 Nov 2007:

"AT A glance, the two pictures look alike. Both have Horsburgh Lighthouse and Pedra Branca in the foreground. But look again - at the background which shows the Johor mainland, with Point Romania and a hill named Mount Berbukit. In one picture the hill is highly visible; in the other, it is hardly visible.

Therein lies the photographic illusion that Malaysia had created to exaggerate the closeness of Pedra Branca to Johor, Singapore said yesterday at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague.

The first photograph, which Malaysia had shown the court last week, was taken by a camera using a telephoto lens.

The second photograph was taken by Singapore, using a camera lens that approximates what the human eye sees. As a result, the Malaysian photograph exaggerated the height of Mount Berbukit by about seven times, Singapore’s Attorney-General Chao Hick Tin said when he presented the two photos before the court."

And also to quote from AG Chao:

‘This blog site is a most unusual one. It was created only last month. There is no information on the identity of the blogger and the photograph used by Malaysia was only put on the website on Nov 2 2007, four days before the start of these oral proceedings’

From a layman’s point of view, I think the presentation of a false evidence would badly affect Malaysia’s chance of winning the case to obtain sovereignty of Pedra Branca or Pulau Batu Puteh as Malaysia calls it. It will be interesting to listen to Malaysia's rebuttals in two days' time but in any case, it would be a major embarassment to the Malaysian law authorities for using supposedly fake evidences to prove their case.

Also read:

Malaysia uses plagiarist's blog to claim Pedra Branca at ICJ?

Evidence obtained from a seemingly fake blog to present to court (evidence included)

Malaysia's side of story on Pedra Branca

Singapore has failed to adduce evidence to support its claim that Britain had established title on Pulau Batu Puteh (Pedra Branca) in the years 1847-1851, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) here heard.

Malaysia’s counsel Sir Elihu Lauterpacht said that although Singapore had repeatedly stated that its conduct after 1851 merely confirmed and maintained a title already acquired, there was no contemporary documentation of any kind which implicitly or explicitly specified that the island was or had become British territory.

“One looks in vain for evidence of any official, formal, direct or even indirect assertion of title,” he told the 16-member bench. He said that unless by 1851 there really existed British title over Pulau Batu Puteh, there was nothing that could be maintained or confirmed.

“Just as we are taught in school the simple arithmetic that when zero is multiplied by any number whatsoever, the result is always zero. So a title that does not exist cannot be confirmed or maintained by any amount of subsequent state action,” he said. Singapore, which is claiming sovereignty over Pulau Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks and South Ledge, had argued that it was maintaining and confirming its pre-established title of Pulau Batu Puteh as the British successor and had continuously, exercised State Authority on and in relation to the island.

Sir Elihu refuted this claim, saying that overwhelmingly this was practised with regard to the operation of the lighthouse on Pulau Batu Puteh and had nothing to do with sovereignty over the island. He emphasised that the operation of lighthouses was not a basis for sovereignty, citing the Minquiers and Ecrehos case, where the ICJ had decided that lighting and buoying since 1861 could not be considered sufficient evidence of an intention to act as sovereign. They were not seen as acts of such a character that they could be considered as involving a manifestation of state authority.

He also cited another case where an arbitral tribunal held that “the operation and maintenance of lighthouses and navigational aids is normally connected to the preservation of safe navigation, and not normally taken as a test of sovereignty”.

Turning to Middle Rocks and South Ledge, Sir Elihu said that there was also no substance in Singapore’s claim for these two marine features because, just like Pulau Batu Puteh, they have always belonged to Johor.

On Singapore’s contention that it had also carried out non-lighthouse activities, he said that these could either be attributed to the republic’s role as the lighthouse administrator or were otherwise unconnected with sovereignty over Pulau Batu Puteh.

Sir Elihu submitted that when Britain built and operated the Horsburgh lighthouse on the island, it showed no intention at all of acquiring sovereignty over Pulau Batu Puteh. In light of this, plus the strong British practice in the 19th and 20th centuries of building and administering lighthouses on its key trade routes on the territories of other states, the continued administration today by Singapore of a lighthouse, which formed part of the Straits Lights System, could not be regarded as evidence of its sovereignty over the territory where it is located.

Submitting on Singapore’s claim that Johor never carried out any competing activities on the island on its own, Sir Elihu said this point was “meaningless verbiage.” He pointed out that Pulau Batu Puteh was a very small place, no more than half the area of a football field, and all that area had been taken up by the lighthouse.

“Where was Johor to engage in competing activities on the island, what competing activities could there have been on the island. Was it to build a competing lighthouse?” he said. Sir Elihu said that Johor had licensed Britain to construct and operate a lighthouse and after that there was nothing for Johor to do except let Britain get on with the operation of the lighthouse and any related activities. “There was no scope for any competitive Johor activity,” he stressed.

Describing every stage, phase or element in Singapore’s claim to Pulau Batu Puteh as ill-founded, he said that Britain’s conduct between 1847 and 1851, on which Singapore relied to found the establishment of title during that period, could not be regarded as effective.

“Singapore concedes that it must show an intention of British conduct to have acquired title in that period. But there is no evidence of British conduct that can be interpreted as a manifestation of intention to acquire sovereignty between 1847 and 1851,” he said.

The article titled "No evidence from Singapore to support claim of sovereignty over Pulau Batu Puteh" was obtained from New Straits Times

More: On Malaysia's claim on islands being part of Johor Sultanate

The case of RSS Courageous and Pedra Branca

While we are interested in the outcome of the recent International Court of Justice’s case between Singapore and Malaysia over the sovereignty of the island Pedra Branca or Pulau Batu Puteh, we might have forgotten the unfortunate collision of the RSS Courageous which happened off Pedra Branca’s coast. Three Singaporean crew died, eight suffered injuries and one person’s body was never found. To quote Dr Tony Tan during the parliamentary session on 20 Jan 2003:

"RSS Courageous was in the waters off Pedra Branca. There has been a spate of violations of our territorial waters at Pedra Branca by foreign state vessels recently. There were a number of violations in the two weeks before the incident, and there have been several since then.

On the night of the collision, ANL Indonesia was heading out of the Singapore Strait towards the South China Sea. RSS Courageous was sailing in the opposite direction. The two vessels were headed in the general direction towards each other. RSS Courageous had detected ANL Indonesia on radar. ANL Indonesia was also visually sighted by the duty watch personnel on board RSS Courageous. The two vessels subsequently came into a close quarter situation, and both took action to try to avoid a collision. But unfortunately the collision took place. ANL Indonesia rammed into the right rear section of RSS Courageous and a portion of the tail end of the Patrol Vessel was sheared off. This portion included the aft mess, where four servicewomen who were off duty at the time were resting.

Besides these violations, it is also regrettable that the Malaysian government has seized on the tragic accident involving RSS Courageous to try to advance their claim to Pedra Branca."

Pedra Branca is just a small island of area about the size of a football field. Why does a bigger country like Malaysia try so hard to argue that it has the sovereignty of the island even when it seems that Singapore has a stronger case? I think it has got to do with the geographical location of Pedra Branca. It is an island in the Singapore Strait with an important aid to navigation that is passed by about fifty thousand ships every year and whoever owns it can claim larger territorial sea waters. This might be seen by the Malaysian government who owns Tanjong Pelapas as a means to limit the economic development of Singapore’s Port of Singapore’s Authority (PSA).

International Herald Tribune posted an article on Pedra Branca's case on 6 Nov 2007.