A Malacca-Singapore model for resolving Hormuz

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‘The Strait of Hormuz has a similar geography to the Malacca-Singapore Straits’ | Photo Credit: AFP

As the siege warfare continues in the Strait of Hormuz and the world suffers, it may be instructive to revisit the Straits of Malacca and Singapore .

The Strait of Malacca runs for some 800 kilometres between the Malay Peninsula and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, connecting the Andaman Sea to the Strait of Singapore, while the Strait of Singapore, some 105 km long, forms its eastern continuation and connects the Malacca Strait to the South China Sea.

The Straits were once considered “international” in the sense that they were like the high seas, over which no country had any claim. In 1971, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore jointly challenged this notion.

Indonesia, a newly decolonised nation, feared for the security of its individual islands if the waters between them were not considered its territory, and in 1957 declared that all waters “surrounding, between and connecting the islands” were Indonesian waters. Then Indonesian President Sukarno had an adversarial relationship with the colonial powers, and the nation was wary of big-power interference.

As the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)was being formulated, Indonesia insisted that its territorial waters should extend 12 nautical miles from the outermost islands. Malaysia, despite its 1963 armed conflict with Indonesia over Borneo, revised the stance it had taken at the 1958 UNCLOS conference and also announced a 12-nautical-mile territorial sea, choosing to work with Jakarta on the Straits through bilateral treaties and joint naval patrols. The two nations continue to cooperate actively to this day.

At their narrowest points, the Straits are well under 24 nautical miles wide. Once both states claimed 12-nautical-mile territorial seas, the zones met in the middle, leaving no strip of high seas or exclusive economic zone (EEZ) between them. Under the customary law of the time, this meant that the Straits were simply territorial seas, where foreign vessels enjoyed only the right of “innocent passage” — a right that Indonesia or Malaysia could suspend for security reasons and that excluded submerged submarines.

The three nations issued a joint statement in 1971 proposing a coordinating body comprising representatives of the three states to administer the Straits. Singapore, an island nation dependent on trade and shipping, did not quite agree to declaring the Straits “not international”, but did make common cause with Malaysia over the safety of navigation.

Japan, a major player through the Japan-funded Malacca Strait Council, offered cooperation with the three states rather than seeking an internationalised regime.