Our series on Tiny Disputes takes us to the Celebes Sea, on the east coast of the island of Borneo. Borneo is the only island in the world that is under a triple sovereignty (Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia), an the eastern maritime border between the Malaysian State of Sabah and the Indonesian Province of North Kalimantan was in dispute for a long time.
The easternmost part of the land border follows the 4°10' parallel, which splits the coastal island of Sebatik between both countries. The Maritime border to the east was not properly defined. This led Indonesian authorities to consider that the maritime demarcation continued along the same parallel. As a result, a coastal reef that lies over 100km from Sebatik was crossed by the parallel, and the tiny coral islands of Ligitan and Sipadan that lay to the South were deemed Indonesian, irrespective of the impracticality of the situation.
After many years of disagreement, both parties agreed to bring the matter to the International Court of Justice, which stated in 2002 that the islands were indeed under Malaysian sovereignty.
The Ligitan Dispute
