Yesterday, Malaysian Attorney-General (AG) Mohamed Apandi Ali said Malaysia had filed an application to the ICJ after the discovery of a new fact over the territorial dispute, which could be decisive. This fact was unknown to both Malaysia and the ICJ when the court gave its judgment in 2008.
The Singapore Straits Times has reported that the ICJ may take more than a year just to decide on the admissibility of Malaysia’s application.
The admissibility of Malaysia’s application would depend on two things: whether the facts submitted were presented within six months of being discovered and whether they are indeed decisive.
The report said the case would go on to the next stage only if the ICJ’s 15 judges – elected by the United Nations General Assembly and the UN security council – decides that Malaysia’s application is admissible.
Representatives of Malaysia and Singapore may have to appear before the ICJ to argue their respective cases.
Yesterday, Apandi said he was confident that the requirements for the application for a revision have been met.
The ICJ’s comments on its own website confirm a Singapore newspaper’s suggestion that there are indeed three new facts.
The ICJ, in a press release on its website yesterday, said the documents included an internal correspondence of the Singapore colonial authorities in 1958, an incident report filed in 1958 by a British naval officer and an annotated map of naval operations from the 1960s.
Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the island republic’s legal team was closely studying Malaysia’s application.
The dispute over Pedra Branca, which is located 7.7 nautical miles off the coast of Johor’s Tanjung Penyusuh, stretches all the way to 1979 after Malaysia published a map indicating it to be within its territorial waters.
Singapore then lodged a formal protest with Malaysia in 1980 and in July 2003, the dispute over Pedra Branca and two smaller islets – Middle Rocks and South Ledge — was finally brought to the ICJ.
On May 23, 2008, the ICJ ruled that Singapore had sovereignty over Pedra Branca, while Malaysia owned Middle Rocks and South Ledge.