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Indonesia National Territory: Rights and Responsibilities
The legal responsibility for Indonesia's environment
continued
to be a matter of controversy in the early 1990s. Among
the
continuing concerns were those expressed in 1982 during
the UN
Conference on the Law of the Sea. In this conference,
Indonesia
sought to defend its March 1980 claim to a
200-nautical-mile
exclusive economic zone. Based on the doctrine of the
political and
security unity of archipelagic land and sea space
(wawasan
nusantara), the government asserted its rights to
marine and
geological resources within this coastal zone. In all, the
area
claimed the government, including the exclusive economic
zone, was
7.9 million square kilometers. Indonesia also claimed as
its
territory all sea areas within a maritime belt of twelve
nautical
miles of the outer perimeter of its islands. All straits,
bays, and
waters within this belt were considered inland seas by the
government and amounted to around 93,000 square
kilometers. The
Strait of Malacca--one of the most heavily traveled
sea-lanes in
the world--was considered by Indonesia and Malaysia to be
their
joint possession, and the two countries requested that
other
nations notify their governments before moving warships
through
these waters. The United States and several other nations
rejected
those claims, considering the strait an international
waterway.
During the 1980s and early 1990s, Indonesia was
involved in
territorial disputes. One controversy concerned
Indonesia's
annexation of the former colony of Portuguese Timor as
Timor Timur
Province in 1976, an action which came under protest in
the UN and
among human rights activists
(see Human Rights and Foreign Policy
, ch. 4).
Another dispute involved Indonesia's conflict with
Australia
over rights to the continental shelf off the coast of
Timor. This
problem was resolved in 1991 by a bilateral agreement
calling for
joint economic exploitation of the disputed area in the
so-called
"Timor Gap." Still other controversies arose regarding
overflight
rights in Irian Jaya (disputed with Papua New Guinea) and
conflicting claims to the Spratly Islands in the South
China Sea by
Brunei, China, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and
Vietnam.
Indonesia played the role of mediator in the Spratly
Islands
controversy
(see Foreign Policy
, ch. 4).
Even as Indonesia extended its claim to territory,
international environmental groups were pressing Jakarta
to accept
environmental responsibility for those territories.
Indonesia was
encouraged to monitor pollution in its territorial waters
and take
legal action to prevent the destruction of its rain
forests. Since
the late 1960s, the government addressed increasing
environmental
problems by establishing resource management programs,
conducting
environmental impact analyses, developing better policy
enforcement, and enacting appropriate laws to give
government
officials proper authority. Despite these efforts,
overlapping
competencies among government departments and legal
uncertainties
about which department had what authority slowed progress
made
against environmental degradation.
Data as of November 1992
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