Pulau Batu Puteh and Territorial Disputes

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has awarded Pulau Batu Puteh (PBP) to Singapore.

Is it surprising? Of course not! This reminds me of similar events in the past.

As long as man depends on man-made laws, this will continue happening.

The background to the issue of PBP is as follows as stated by

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"Abdul Ghafur Hamid: After The Hague, it's time to move on (NSTOnline 2008/05/25)

"According to the Malaysian argument, PBP, the two marine features, and other islands in and around Singapore Strait were part of the Johor Sultanate before 1824.

This situation was confirmed by the Crawfurd Treaty of 1824, which ceded to Great Britain the Island of Singapore and all islets and rocks within 10 geographical miles off Singapore, but otherwise left the territory of Johor unaffected.

Therefore, Malaysia primarily invoked the original title over the island and two marine features by the Sultan of Johor from time immemorial. The main Malaysian stand before the ICJ was that PBP was not a no man's land (terra nullius) when the British East India Company constructed the Horsburgh Lighthouse on the island and sought and obtained the permission of the sultan and Temenggong of Johor to build the lighthouse on the island. Malaysia argued that Singapore's presence on the island was merely as lighthouse administrator. Neither Great Britain nor Singapore ever exercised sovereignty over the three features. "

The main Singaporean contention was that the island and two marine features were terra nullius when the British constructed the lighthouse. They argued that the construction of the lighthouse and the authorisation of the British Crown constituted a classic taking of possession of a territory as a sovereign.

Title was acquired by the British in accordance with the legal principles governing the acquisition of territory in 1851. The title acquired in 1851 has been maintained by the British and its lawful successor, Singapore, for about 150 years and during such a long period Malaysia did not make any protests apart from the first assertion of sovereignty in 1979.

Singapore, therefore, primarily relied on the taking of possession of a territory not owned by any state and the continuous, peaceful and effective exercise of state authority over it.

From the perspective of international law, this case is a competition between a claim based on original title (Malaysia) and one invoking title by means of taking possession of a terra nullius and "peaceful and continuous exercise of state authority" (Singapore).

"The ICJ concluded that sovereignty over PBP had passed to Singapore due to peaceful and continuous display of sovereign acts on the part of Singapore since 1953 and acquiescence on the part of Malaysia."

This decision by ICJ is not surprising. It rules based on man-made laws. And man-made laws have all along caused havoc all over the world. Just sieve through history and one will find many examples: Europeans taking over North and South America from the natives, Jews taking over Palestine and now forcefully evicting Arabs from their homeland, Spain taking over Muslim-owned Philippines and giving anyone as much land as he can cover over a day's walk, Britain taking over Australia and New Zealand etc.

Allah owns everything in the sky and on earth. He has provided guidelines for solving territorial disputes. For those interested , see detailed discussion of this in Muhammad Hamidullah "The Muslim Conduct of State" Chapter lll "Property" from page 95. (Sh Muhammad Ashraf Kashmiri Bazar, Lahore Pakistan 6th Edition 1973).

Unlike ICJ, people who administer Allah's laws will be accountable to Him in the after-life. To whom does ICJ answer to?

In dispute between muslims and non-muslims, who would benefit from ICJ decisions?

Allah says:

[50] Do they then seek after a judgment of (the Days of) Ignorance? But who, for a people whose faith is assured, can give better judgment than Allah? [51] O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors; they are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust. (Al Maa-iddah 5:50-51)

Below is an example of man-made laws applied to solve problems:

"The Israeli-Palestinian conflict resulted from competing Jewish and Arab national aspirations for the region of Palestine, conflicting promises by the British in the forms of the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence and the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and several outbreaks of violence between Jewish and Arab residents of the region of Palestine.

The roots of the conflict can be traced to the late 19th century, which saw a rise in national movements, including Zionism and Arab nationalism. Zionism, the Jewish national movement, was established as a political movement in 1897, largely as a response to Russian and European anti-Semitism.^[11][12] It sought the establishment of a Jewish Nation-State in Palestine (a region known to the Jews by the name of the historical Jewish homeland, Eretz Israel) so that they might find sanctuary and self- determination there.^[11] To this end, the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish National Fund encouraged immigration and funded purchase of land, both under Ottoman rule and under British rule, in the region of Palestine.^[13]

Following World War I and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, Palestine came under the control of the United Kingdom through the Sykes-Picot Agreement and a League of Nations mandate. During the mandatory period, the British made conflicting promises to both populations in the forms of the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence and the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and tensions between Arab and Jewish groups in the region erupted into physical violence as in the 1920 Palestine riots, the 1921 Palestine riots, the 1929 Hebron massacre and the 1936-1939 Arab revolt in Palestine.

The British responded to these outbreaks of violence with the Haycraft Commission of Inquiry, the Shaw Report, the Peel Commission of 1936-1937, and the White Paper of 1939. The Peel Commission proposed a failed partition plan, while the White Paper established a quota for Jewish immigration set by the British in the short-term and by the Arab population in the long-term. Both Arab and Jewish groups directed violence against the British, as in the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine, the King David Hotel bombing, and the assassinations of Lord Moyne and Count Bernadotte, in order to expel the mandatory government, which was held in contempt by both sides.

This violence and the heavy cost of World War II led Britain to turn the issue of Palestine over to the United Nations.

In 1947, the U.N. approved the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into two states: one Jewish and one Arab. The Jewish leadership accepted the plan, but Palestinian Arab leaders, supported by the Arab League, rejected the plan, and a civil war broke out."