Member book, Butcher and Elson, Sovereignty and the Sea: How Indonesia Became an Archipelagic State

Robert Elson Discussion

We are pleased to announce the publication of our book.

 

John G. Butcher and R.E. Elson, Sovereignty and the Sea: How Indonesia Became an Archipelagic State.

Singapore: National University of Singapore Press, 2017. Pp. xxvii, 527. ISBN: 978-981-4722-21-6

 

Until the mid-1950s nearly all the waters lying between the far-flung islands of the Indonesian archipelago were as open to the ships of all nations as the waters of the great oceans.  In order to enhance its failing sovereign grasp over the nation, as well as to deter perceived external threats to Indonesia’s national integrity, in 1957 the Indonesian government declared that it had “absolute sovereignty” over all the waters lying within straight baselines drawn between the outermost islands of Indonesia.  At a single step, Indonesia had asserted its dominion over a vast swathe of what had hitherto been seas open to all, and made its lands and the seas it now claimed a single unified entity for the first time.

International outrage and alarm ensued, expressed especially by the great maritime nations. Nevertheless, despite its low international profile, its relative poverty, and its often frail state capacity, Indonesia eventually succeeded in gaining international recognition for its claim when, in 1982, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea formally recognized the existence of a new category of states known as “archipelagic states” and declared that these states had sovereignty over their “archipelagic waters”.

Sovereignty and the Sea explains how Indonesia succeeded in its extraordinary claim. At the heart of Indonesia’s archipelagic campaign was a small group of Indonesian diplomats. Largely because of their dogged persistence, negotiating skills, and willingness to make difficult compromises Indonesia became the greatest archipelagic state in the world.

 

Table of contents

Preface

Chapter 1 The “sea territory” of the Netherlands Indies

Chapter 2 The Territorial Sea and Maritime Districts Ordinance

Chapter 3 The declaration

Chapter 4 Geneva 1958

Chapter 5 Regulation No.4 of 1960

Chapter 6 Confrontations

Chapter 7 A new beginning

Chapter 8 The Seabed Committee 1971–72

Chapter 9 The Seabed Committee 1973

Chapter 10 Preparing for Caracas

Chapter 11 Caracas 1974

Chapter 12 Negotiating with the United States

Chapter 13 Geneva 1975

Chapter 14 New York, spring 1976

Chapter 15 New York, summer 1976

Chapter 16 New York 1977

Chapter 17 To Montego Bay

Chapter 18 Reflections on the diplomatic campaign

Chapter 19 Epilogue

This book is published by the National University of Singapore Press and will be available in the Americas from the University of Chicago Press in May 2017.

For further information please visit: https://nuspress.nus.edu.sg/products/sovereignty-and-the-sea-how-indonesia-became-an-archipelagic-state and http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/S/bo26241034.html