Paper Title
Beyondpedra Branca: Time to Erect Maritime Fence in The Strait of Singapore

Abstract
In February 2017, Malaysia announced that it is making an application to revise the decision of International Court of Justice (ICJ) made in 2008 on the sovereignty over Batu Puteh or Pedra Branca, as it is known in Singapore.This island is now part of Singapore. PedraBranca is an outlying rock located 7.7 nautical miles off the Johor coast and about 24 nautical miles off the eastern coast of Singapore towards the opening to the South China Sea. When delivering its judgments in 2008, the ICJ acknowledged that PedraBranca was never terra nullius as it was within the sovereignty of Johor.The ICJ also rejected Singapore’s contention that PedraBranca is made up collectively with Middle Rocks and South Ledge. Middle Rocks is now with Malaysia and the ICJ did not make a clear decision on South Ledge. This article discusses the importance of both Malaysia and Singapore to properly define their maritime territories around Pedra Branca and Middle Rocks. As Malaysia is no longer revising Pedra Branca, it is important for both countries to resume negotiations and to finally decide to whom South Ledge belongs to. This article concludes that both nations have to finish off what they started ten years ago – to finally erect maritime fence between the two nations in the Strait of Singapore. Keywords - Pedra Branca, Sovereignty, International Court of Justice, Law of the Sea