Border Focus: Indonesia and Malaysia

What is disputed?

Indonesian and Mayalsia have several border disputes, but the most important relates to an area called the Ambalat region in the Sulawesi sea.

Why is the area disputed?

The area is believed to be rich in hydrocarbons, and both countries have offered exploration blocks to IOCs. The area is also rich in sealife and has great tourism potential. The maritime boundary was not delimited during the colonial period.

What is the history of the dispute?

The roots of the dispute lie in a 1979 map issued by Malaysia, which outlined its territorial waters and continental shelf. The map drew Malaysia's maritime boundary running in a southeast direction in the Sulawsi sea, from the easternmost point of the land border on Sebatik Island, an island off the eastern coast of Borneo. The map included large parts of the Ambalat region inside its territory, and Indonesia and other surrounding countries quickly protested to the map.

What is considered to be each country's 'basepoints' is crucial in determining the limits of their maritime claim. In the 1979 map, Malaysia took the islands of Sipadan and Ligitan to be its basepoints, despite the fact that Indonesia had claimed them since 1959. The two countries took the dispute to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which ruled in Malaysia's favour in 2002, based on its 'effective occupancy' (effectivités).

While the ICJ decision had no bearing on the Ambalat block itself, Indonesia was forced to amend its baselines, removing Sipadan and Ligatan islands as basepoints. In 2008, Indonesia redrew its baselines and as a result, the Ambalat Block was no longer entirely inside Indonesian internal waters.

 

How serious is the dispute?

The dispute over the Ambalat block has continued throughout this decade, with both sides awarding the blocks to oil companies. There are two blocks that are the major disagreement point: what Indonesia calls Ambalat Block and East Ambalat Block, and what Malaysia calls Block ND6 and ND7. The blocks are not identical, but they have large overlapping areas.

The deep sea blocks are estimated to contain at least 62 million barrels of oil and 348 cubic meters of natural gas. In 1999 Indonesia awarded Ambalat Block to ENI, and in 2004 it awarded Unocal the East Ambalat Block. In 2005, however, Malaysia's Petronas awarded Production Sharing Contracts to Shell and Petronas Carigali for both blocks.

There have also been skirmishes between navies, and on numerous occasions one side's fishing vessels have been arrested by patrol boats and accused of being in the other's territory. Both countries have a heavy naval presence in the area.

What are the possible solutions?

Malaysia said in 2009 that it would not refer the dispute to the ICJ, preferring diplomatic channels, which is positive. 2010 has seen both countries commit themselves to negotiations, and it seems that discussions will go ahead despite the fact that Malaysia is currently in dispute with Singapore over claims to Batu Puteh Island. The case has been referred to the ICJ, and while Malaysia previously said it could not resolve its dispute with Indonesia until it had resolved its dispute with Singapore, it looks like this issue has been circumvented.

In August 2010, Indonesia said it was looking into the possibility of temporarily turning the disputed border areas with Malaysia into a jointly managed territory to avoid more border incidents. The two countries have already established joint patrols in the Malacca Strait. This would be a positive first step, and could lead, ultimately, to the establishment of a joint development area in the Ambalat block. Joint Development Zones have been used successfully in other regions where resources straddle the border. Ultimately, until the maritime boundary is definitively established, both sides will lose out on the economic prosperity the Ambalat Block promises.

Cultural and political tensions continue to hind progress however. In 2009, there was uproar in Indonesia when a Malaysian tourism advert on the Discovery Channel featured a traditional Balinese dance called Pendet. One Indonesian politician even suggested they declare war on Malaysia as a result. Malaysia and Indonesia have a rich shared history – there was even a time when the idea of a pan-Malay region was floated – and it is unfortunate that the colonial experience, which created the two nations, and the demands of modern nationalism, which forces the cultures to delineate themselves so rigidly, has caused so many seemingly avoidable problems.

For the full article, please visit the Menas Borders website, here

Border Focus: The Arctic

Seemingly endless expanses of icy tundra, punctuated only by the occasion polar bear: the arctic on first glance doesn't seem worth fighting over. But it has been the centre of a dispute between the five nations that border it for the last sixty years. Russia, Norway, Canada, Denmark and the US all make claims to the arctic waters, and more importantly, what lies beneath them.

It is thought that up to 90 billion barrels of oil and 30 per cent of the world's undiscovered gas resources could lie in the arctic region, and as receding ice caps make accessing this inhospitable region easier, the race to establish ownership has heated up.

Russia and Norway

In 2010, Russia and Norway settled their dispute in the Barents Sea, and the Norway has used the occasion to encourage the other arctic nations to make similar progress. In response to signing the Barents Sea Pact, Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said "It sends an important signal to the rest of the world - the Arctic is a peaceful region where any issues that arise are resolved in accordance with international law."

Russia and Norway have been in the process of delimiting their maritime boundary since 1957, when a short section of the maritime boundary, from the land boundary terminus through the confines of Varangerfjord, was designated. The boundary was extended through Varangerfjord in 2007, but it was only in 2010 that the lengthy section through the Barents Sea and into the Arctic Ocean was determined.

Norway had argued for a median line, which would put the boundary exactly equidistant from each country's coast, which Russia (and previously the Soviet Union) advocated extending the boundary north along the 32° 4' 35"E meridian. The boundary agreed last week is a compromise between the two lines.

Russia and Canada

While Russia has solved one of its disputes, its problem with Canada continues. This dispute centres on the Lomonosov Ridge, a 1,200mile underwater mountain range running along the floor of the Arctic Ocean from Siberia to Canada's Ellesmere Island. Russia first laid claim to the ridge in 2001, arguing that as it is part of Siberia's shelf, Russia was entitled to sole rights to the ridge and the nearby seabed. The UN rejected this claim, saying more evidence was needed. Russia is expected to resubmit in 2011-12, with Canada and Denmark expected to offer evidence for their claims to the region in 2013 and 2014 respectively.

Denmark and Canada
Canada also has a stalled dispute with Denmark over Hans Island, a tiny barren knoll in the middle of the Nares Strait, which divides Ellesmere Island and Denmark's Greenland Territory. The maritime boundary in the area was delimited in a 1973 treaty, which plotted 127 points through the strait. The island, however, lies in between two points, and so has remained in dispute. At the heart of the dispute is shipping rights, and it seems that Canada is worried that giving in on Hans Island will compromise its exclusive claims to the Northwest Passage. With the exception of displays of power – visits to the island by prominent politicians, planting of flags, and the holding of army exercises – little has been done to resolve the dispute.

Canada and the US
More progress has been made on Canada's dispute with the US over the Beaufort Sea. High-level discussions have occurred over the summer in 2010, and for the third year in a row, researchers from both countries worked in the region mapping the sea floor. The dispute emerged in the 1970s, over a triangle-shaped 21,500sq km section of the Beaufort Sea close to the Yukon-Alaska shore, but the joint Canada-US seabed surveys in 2008 and 2009 showed each country's claims could extend much farther toward the North Pole than previously imagined.

Canada envisions a boundary that is an extension of the arrow-straight land border between the Yukon and Alaska, whic follows the 141 meridian. The US, by contrast, argues for a line based on 'equidistance'. What is interesting is that while each country's approach would benefit them in the restricted Beaufort Sea area, when the now accessible Outer Beaufort is considered, each of their approaches actually works against them.

Transnational concerns
A separate, but related concern is the issue of control over the Northwest Passage, which, due to retreating polar ice caps, is increasingly being seen as a shipping shortcut between Asia and Europe. Ottawa says that the Northwest Passage is Canadian sovereign water, but Washington and several other nations regard it as an international passage.

Meanwhile, the EU recently angered the Arctic Council, a group of arctic nations charged with protecting the environment, when EU Vice-President Diana Wallis said that, in allowing deepwater oil exploration in the region, they were failing to protect the fragile environment.

None of these disputes are likely to result in military conflict, but they have certainly hampered relations in recent years. As nations become increasingly eager to and able to exploit the natural resources in the region, it seem many of them will gradually edge towards resolution.

Read the full article, here.

The Ilemi Triangle Sovereigntyscape (Part One)

The Ilemi Triangle is an area of disputed land in East Africa of approximately 10,000 square kilometres. Kenya (the state with de facto control) and Sudan have been the principal claimants of the territory although Ethiopia has also played a role. Imperial conquest, treaties and mapmaking are central to the contemporary problem although precise delimitation of the three imperial spheres—Ethiopia, the British in Kenya and Uganda, and the joint British-Egyptian administration of Sudan—was not something that took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Nonetheless, the intersection of these forces meant that Ilemi became important precisely because of the lack of attention that it received during the colonial boundary-making process of 1914. Ilemi’s sparse settlement, remoteness, lack of infrastructure and variously inhospitable swampy and mountainous landscapes all meant that the area could be treated as relatively insignificant.

But Ilemi, like other areas of south Sudan, is potentially rich in oil. ‘Nevertheless,’ writes Nene Mburu (2003), ‘no explorations have been made in the contested territory partly due to insecurity from the . . . civil war in southern Sudan and partly due to a hands-off attitude by each regional government.’ Ilemi’s value may also be recognised in its dry-season pastures which have been ‘the focus of incessant conflicts among transhumant communities and an enigma to boundary surveyors who previously failed to determine its precise extent and breadth’ (Mburu). This article, the first of two on the Ilemi Triangle will narrate a brief historical account of the Ilemi problem and the trajectory that the future resolution of the dispute may take. The second will consider the Triangle in the context of recent work by in political geography on ‘sovereigntyscapes’, principally by James Sidaway (2003). Indeed, Ilemi might be pointed to as an example of deficiency in African sovereignty itself but, as this work argues, rather than perceive a crisis of sovereignty we might more usefully recognise a crisis of interpretation. In this sense, weak or failed sovereignty in Africa should be considered in light of excess hegemonic, often Western, power rather than through the reproduction of an orthodox discourse on the characteristic deficiency of African sovereignty.

Read the full article here.

Khartoum angered by UN peacekeepers on north-south Sudan border

The Sudanese government has objected to a proposal to move UN peacekeepers to the border areas between north and south Sudan ahead of the Southern Sudan independence referendum, due to be held in January 2011.

Rabie Abdulatti, a senior official with the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) said on Friday 15th October that the UN would need Khartoum's approval to move troops to the region. "I don't think that it would be legal, the UN Security Council cannot deploy more soldiers without the government's approval," Abdulatti told AFP news agency.

The statement came after Alain Le Roy, the UN peacekeeping chief, said troops would be moved to 'hotspots' in the border region within weeks.

Le Roy was speaking in response to a request from Salva Kiir, president of semi-autonous Southern Sudan, who asked for a frontier buffer zone when he met Security Council delegates last week.

About 10,600 troops have been deployed as part of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS), which was established in 2005, to support the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the two-decade war between the north and the south. January's referendum is part of the peace accord, and the South is widely expected to vote for independence.

Peace, however, has been shaky since 2005, and the running party in the South, the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), has warned that Khartoum might try to interrupt the referendum, and has said that the NCP has persisted in deploying its forces at the border with the south, in possible preparation for war.

The SPLM welcomed the deployment of UN troops at the border region.

Abyei

The oil-rich Abyei region, which straddles the north and the south, is due to have its own referendum on 9th January regarding whether to stay in the north, or join what is expected to become the independent south, but last week, officials in Khartoum said the vote would have to be delayed. "It is very clear that right now it is not possible to have the Abyei referendum on 9 Jan 2011," Didiri Mohammad Ahmad, a NCP member told reporters on Thursday 14th October.

"We all agree that this is no longer practical. We agreed that the next talks we will try to look for other alternatives."

The SPLM, however, disagrees. "A delayed vote is unacceptable. The people of Abyei are still holding out for the referendum to be held on January 9," Deng Arop Kuol, a SPLM member told the Reuters news agency. "If the government does not give them that option we can have a self-run referendum."

Issues over who is eligible to vote seems to be the cause for delay, although the SPLM says the north is using this as a delaying strategy. Atem Garang, a senior SPLM leader told Al Jazeera that there was no reason to delay the vote.

"Abyei protocols is very clear, local officials in Abyei itself have to identify who the residents are, and who is eligible to vote," he said.

"Everything is in its place, and there is no justification for a delay."

Sources: Al Jazeera, Press TV, Relief Web

For more information on the Southern Sudan referendum, see the full story here.

Border Focus: Eritrea and Djibouti

What is disputed?

At the centre of the dispute between Eritrea and Djibouti is a tiny strip of land at their border. The greater Horn of Africa region, however, has numerous border disputes.

What is the history of the dispute?

The accepted border is a result of a 1900 boundary agreement between colonial powers France (French Somaliland, now Djibouti) and Italy (Eritrea). They agreed that the international boundary starts at Cape Doumeira (Ras Doumeira) at the Red Sea and runs for 1.5km along the watershed devide of the peninsula. The 1900 protocol also specified that the Doumeira Island (Ile Doumeira), which lies just offshore, would not be assigned sovereignty and would remain demilitarised.

The border at Ras Doumeira was, however, never demarcated. The area itself is a hill, and it was simply agreed that the northern slopes of hill were Italian, the southern slopes, French. Upon independence, Eritrea and Djibouti accepted this arrangement.

The first major post-colonial dispute arose when, in April 1996, a Djibouti official accused Eritrea of shelling Ras Doumeira, and the two countries narrowly avoided going to war.
Problems arose again in 2008, when the Eritreans occupied the hilltop. The circumstances surrounding this event are somewhat disputed. Djiboutian sources report that in January, Eritrea requested to cross the border in order to get sand for a road, but instead occupied the territory, set up fortifications and dug trenches on both sides of the Djiboutian border. Djibouti also claimed that Eritrea had put out new maps showing Ras Doumeira as Eritrean territory.

Eritrean sources, however, note that Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, met twice with Djiboutian officials, informing them that his country intended to build a demarcation on Ras Doumeira hill. It was not clear why Eritrea wanted to build such a demarcation, but it has been speculated that it might be connected to boundary disputes it has with other neighbours, including Ethiopia, Yemen and Somalia. It might also reflect Eritrea's discomfort with the presence of American and French bases in Djibouti; the main American base, 'Seven Sea' is less than 10km south of the hill.

Both sides fortified the hill and manned it with military personnel, and clashes between the two sides broke out in June 2008. Despite the military might of Eritrea, Djibouti's backing by the majority of the international community, including former colonial master France, meant that it was able to withhold the Eritrean forces. Still, 35 people died in the clashes and dozens of others were wounded.

After Djibouti requested UN intervention, a UN fact-finding mission was sent to the region. It was welcomed by Djibouti, but blocked by Eritrea, who refused to meet with it or with any envoy of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

In January 2009, the UN Security council adopted Resolution 1862, which demanded that Eritrea pulled its forces from the disputed area, and welcomed Djibouti's withdrawal of its forces to its positions before the dispute. A further resolution, 1907, imposed an arms embargo on Eritrea, admonishing the country for its lack of progress on resolving the border dispute with Djibouti, and for arming Somali insurgents such as Al-Shabaab.

Resolution options?

In June 2010, the two countries agreed to a Qatar-led mediation process, a move that was warmly welcomed by the African Union and the UN, although Ethiopia questioned Eritrea's sincerity.

The fact that Eritrea agreed to Qatar's mediation effort is a positive sign that it wants to reintegrate into the world community. Eritrean President Afewerki was instrumental in starting the talks, and 2010 has seen him striking more conciliatory tones towards neighbours.

In September 2010, Isaias welcomed UN special representative for Somalia to Asmara for talks, and voiced his full support for a peaceful solution to Somalia's problems. Eritrea has also tried to forge friendships with Qatar, Iran, Israel and Egypt.

Eritrea is on the brink of a potentially lucrative gold mining boom, and seems to be worried about being isolated. Ethiopia used to use Eritrean ports for Red Sea access, but in recent years has preferred Djibouti. The potential revenues from shipping could be another incentive to improve its global reputation.

For more information on this dispute, including consideration of the regional context, see the full Border Focus, here.

The Sudanese Referendum: Secession and the Challenges to Peace

The 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) ended the war between the Government of Sudan and the forces that had coalesced around the Sudan People's Liberation Movement. the CPA afforded Southern Sudan the right to an exercise of self-determination and set up the semi-autonomous South Sudan, the entity that, after the referendum scheduled for 9 January 2011, may emerge as the first new independent African state in Africa since 1993.

In all likelihood, the people of South Sudan will vote for independence in January. This outcome will itself not be without problems and yet there is still the potential that the referendum could be delayed or otherwise disrupted. This carries the very real potential for the expiry of the CPA and, with it, the compromising of the basis that exists for the interaction and dialogue between the North and South.

Menas Borders' article considers the problems that attend the issue of South Sudan's potential secession and it can be read here.

Territorial integrity in the archives: the contingency of territorial geopolitics?

The territorial integrity principle enjoys a central position in the international legal doctrine. It articulates a guarantee of states' exclusive territoriality, orients the modern international system around state sovereignty and seeks to derive order from territorial fixity. In this system territorial borders may only be changed by the consent of the states concerned and, moreover, a 'classical' view of borders has been superseded through the adoption of territorial integrity as the norms of international society have been globalised.

But there is nothing essential or timelessly 'true' about the territorial integrity principle even if it is often depicted in those terms. Its current centrality to international order is dependent on a 'good fit' with a particular geopolitical vision. While its roots can certainly be discerned much earlier, it was after 1945 and within the context of an American-sponsored geopolitical order, that territorial integrity became a structuring principle. This marked a stage in a process that had not been uncontested. In this article, consideration of archival material allows for the illustration of the way in which one of the US' closest partners, the UK, considered organising collective security around a guarantee of territorial integrity to be undesirable. While it is impossible to say how an alternative vision would have structured international affairs in the post-World War II world, it is still intriguing to consider the motivations of the UK government in resisting the implementation of a guarantee that became so central to the preservation of order in the post-1945 world.

Read the full article here.