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Pedra Branca

Pedra Branca is an island which Singapore has occupied and exercised sovereignty over for more than 130 years since the 1840s without any protest from Malaysia. Over these years, Singapore maintained the Horsburgh Lighthouse and other facilities on the island, helping ships to navigate safely in surrounding waters.

Through these years, Malaysia had never staked a claim on the island, not even in 1965 when Singapore gained independence and became sovereign over its island territories. In 1953, the acting secretary of the Johor state government even issued a statement clearly saying that it did not claim Pedra Branca. As recently as 1974, a Malaysian government map still marked Pulau Batu Putih (Malaysia's name for Pedra Branca) as Singapore's territory.

In 1979, Malaysia for the first time published a new map which included the island of Pedra Branca in its territory. Prior to this date, Singapore had occupied and exercised full sovereignty over the island for more than 150 years (since the 1840s) without any protest from Malaysia. Previous Malaysian maps, even as late as 1974, had showed Pedra Branca as belonging to Singapore.

In 1989, Singapore proposed to refer Malaysia's claim to the International Court of Justice. Malaysia agreed to this in 1994 and both countries settled on the text of a Special Agreement to refer Malaysia's claim to the ICJ in 1998. However, Malaysia made no attempt to pursue the signing and ratification of the Special Agreement to start the process until recently.

On 17 Dec 2002, the International Court of Justice ruled in favour of Malaysia in a separate, unrelated dispute with Indonesia over the islands of Sipadan and Ligitan. Following this victory, Malaysia began to accuse Singapore of delay over the Pedra Branca issue. Malaysia also accused Singapore of building new structures on Pedra Branca. This was not true because Singapore had built no new structures on the island for the last 10 years.

Singapore's position is that the issue should be resolved before the International Court of Justice. Until then, the status quo should remain, and Singapore will continue to exercise sovereignty over Pedra Branca as it had since the 1840s. Malaysia took this same position against Indonesia vis-a-vis the Sipadan and Ligitan islands over which Malaysia had possession.

On 6 February 2003, Singapore's Minister for Foreign Affairs, Prof S Jayakumar and his Malaysian counterpart, Mr Syed Hamid Albar, signed in Putrajaya, Malaysia, the Special Agreement for Submission to the International Court of Justice of the Dispute Between Malaysia and Singapore Concerning Sovereignty over Pedra Branca, Middle Rocks and South Ledge. A Joint Press Conference was held following the Signing Ceremony which touched on Pedra Branca and other topics. On 24 January 2003 Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong led a delegation of Singapore Ministers and spouses to Malaysia's Chinese New Year Open House at Danga Bay, Johor Baru, at the invitation of Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi.

The ICJ granted the Pedra Branca islands to Singapore in 2008; Malaysia got the Middle Rocks islands, but the ICJ did not rule on maritime regimes, boundaries, or disposition of South Ledge.