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The Forum > Article Comments > Breaching sovereignty: Australia, Indonesia and the law of the sea > Comments

Breaching sovereignty: Australia, Indonesia and the law of the sea : Comments

By Binoy Kampmark, published 21/2/2014

Australia's refugee policy, specifically with regards Indonesia, can be summed up as calculatingly brazen or breathtakingly incompetent.

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@ Bazz,
Posted Saturday, 22 February 2014 10:34:52 PM
Not at all. If a government operated vessel, whether a warship or a custom vessel, is towing another vessel back to its country of origin, and if the commanding officers on the towing vessel know full well that this will ruffle some feathers, then it is incumbent on them to familiarise themselves with EXACTLY where the 12 nautical mile border is, and stop short of it.
When Australian Coast Guard ships intercept Indonesian fishing boats within our declared borders, do we allow the errant fishing boats to use ignorance as an excuse. No, we tow the offending fishing boats into harbour and torch them.
Err on the side of caution here. I imagine such will be the practice from now on. And if our commanding officers need to go back to school, then by all means lets send them back to school.
To our government's credit, they spotted the error, admitted it and apologised. Unless something happened of which we are all ignorant, so far no one has died as a result. Nor has anyone new gone into detention. Good.
And the boats, who were tearing Australia apart, have stopped. Also good.
Posted by halduell, Saturday, 22 February 2014 11:16:27 PM
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From my comments on this subject at The Guardian Australia:

"Morrison and the commander of Operation Sovereign Borders, Lieutenant General Angus Campbell, admitted in January that Australian naval vessels had “inadvertently” entered Indonesia’s territorial waters on “several” occasions."

Well, if you believe that, here's a riddle for you:

"What do you call the same accident repeated six times?"

Answer: "Deliberate."

Another thing: You have to ask yourself "At what point does incompetence become criminality?" Now, let's all rush to our Law of the Sea texts.
Posted by JKUU, Sunday, 23 February 2014 2:16:51 AM
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What are australian ships doing more than half-way to Indonesia ? How far out is the australian sea border anyway & if the Navy isn't sure then how the hell can anyone make sense of anything. One can only hope that not all of the Navy ships are crewed by lefties out to emabarrass the Coalition Government.
Posted by individual, Sunday, 23 February 2014 8:02:31 AM
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Hi Indi,

The Australian maritime border is quite different to that of Indo. Our border follows the shoreline of a very large land mass that relatively easy to define.

The Indo shoreline is in fact a collection of hundreds of islands so their 12 mile limit is a nightmare of overlapping 12 mile circles, a bit like the Olympic Rings but much more complex. The overlaps create very odd border “shapes” looking more like giant saw teeth. These also create border shapes looking like egg timers and funnels, a nightmare to navigate.

Of course all our military can pinpoint their own position or that of the enemy to within a few meters, you can do that on your own mobile phone or your cars’ SatNav.

The problem seems to have been matching the ships current GPS coordinates with whatever charts central command were using, I suspect not many border charts of indo ever had any GPS coordinates on them. I’m sure will have included them now?

Our military command should have “mapped” GPS coordinates onto the charts to avoid this situation. It’s sad that the Navy cops a flogging for not knowing where they were, when of course they knew where they were but not in relation to the Indo borders
Posted by spindoc, Sunday, 23 February 2014 9:56:02 AM
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spindoc,
I ask again what are australian Navy ships doing further north than the half-way line between the two nations ? What is the need ?
Posted by individual, Sunday, 23 February 2014 10:35:46 AM
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Hi Binoy,

Perhaps the next time you feel inclined to accuse Australia of being << calculatingly brazen or breathtakingly incompetent >>. You might wish to consider doing your research as an academic before you type anything so embarrassing.

The only person calculatingly brazen and breathtakingly incompetent on this thread is YOU.

Geodetic Datum of Indonesian Maritime Boundaries:
Status and Problems.

http://www.fig.net/pub/cairo/papers/ts_45/ts45_01_abidin_etal.pdf

“Indonesia has maritime boundaries with 10 countries namely: Australia, Timor Leste, Papua New Guinea (PNG), Palau, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and India”.

“Many treaties have been ratified concerning these boundaries. Unfortunately, many
coordinates of boundary points mentioned in the treaties are not clear in relation with their geodetic datum”.

“In delimitating its maritime boundaries, based on the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982, Indonesia has the rights to establish boundaries of four maritime zones, namely: Territorial Sea, Contiguous Zone, Economic Exclusive Zone (EEZ) and Continental Shelf.”

Coastal Waters 3km, Territorial Sea 12km, Contiguous zone 24km, Exclusive Economic Zone 200km.

“Geodetic coordinates of a point will depend on its geodetic datum. Same geodetic coordinates but with different geodetic datum will lead to different locations on the Earth surface”.

“Uncertainty in geodetic datum of maritime boundary points will lead to uncertainty of its real location on the sea surface. This will introduce not only technical but also legal implications, both in spatial and non-spatial domains, since it will not only alter the listed coordinates in the treaty, but will also shift the boundary lines that have been agreed by the neighboring countries. There are spatial and non-spatial implications caused by this uncertainty in geodetic datum of Indonesia’s maritime boundaries”.

“The uncertainty in geodetic datum of Indonesia’s maritime boundaries has to be resolved as soon as possible. The discussions, talks and negotiations with the involved countries have to be started and conducted according to the legal procedures usually adopted in maritime boundary delimitation process”.
Posted by spindoc, Sunday, 23 February 2014 11:18:57 AM
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