Jayakumar and Tommy Koh give behind-the-scenes account of 30-year saga
Zakir Hussain, Straits Times 20 Dec 08;
BACK in 1992, Singapore was so confident of its legal case on Pedra Branca that it handed over all its documents to Malaysia.
In his foreword to a new book on the 30-year dispute, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew disclosed he had instructed that the materials be shown to Malaysia, 'an unprecedented unilateral move'.
Yesterday, Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong took up the point in his keynote address at the launch of the book Pedra Branca: The Road To The World Court.
He said: 'I am not sure whether the International Court of Justice (ICJ) realised that most of the documents used by Malaysia in her arguments against Singapore were produced by us.
'So, you can imagine our deep disappointment when it was alleged that Singapore had withheld from the court a letter which Malaysia believed would damage our case.
He added: 'The truth is that we had gone round the world looking for it for some 30 years without success.'
This move and other previously undisclosed facts about the Pedra Branca case are contained in the 190-page book on how both countries managed the dispute, which the ICJ resolved in May this year.
Pedra Branca, a football field-sized island at the eastern entrance of the Singapore Strait, was first occupied in 1847 by the British, who built Horsburgh Lighthouse there. Singapore later took over, and Malaysia staked its claim in 1979.
In May, the ICJ ruled that Pedra Branca belonged to Singapore, and that nearby Middle Rocks belonged to Malaysia.
Who owns a third maritime feature, South Ledge, is being worked out by the two countries. The ICJ says it belongs to the country in whose waters it sits.
The long journey to the ICJ resolution was highlighted by Deputy Prime Minister S. Jayakumar, who co-wrote the book with Ambassador-at-Large Tommy Koh.
Speaking at its launch at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), he said: 'For both of us, working on the case for some 30 years was really a labour of love.'
In the book, both men noted how their involvement with the case began in 1978, when they were representing Singapore at the United Nations in Geneva. The MFA had sent them an urgent telex, asking Professor Jayakumar to go to London to locate certain documents on the island.
Both men went on to helm the team making Singapore's case for Pedra Branca before the ICJ in The Hague in November last year, with CJ Chan, who was Attorney-General from 1992 to 2006.
The book recounts the twists and turns in the dispute and the behind-the-scenes manoeuvres taken to resolve it.
At the launch, Prof Jayakumar recounted several anecdotes, including how he won 10 euros (S$20) from CJ Chan at the last stage of the hearing last year.
Prof Jayakumar had wagered that the judges would ask a question allowing Singapore to reply to a last-minute argument Malaysia had made when Singapore could no longer address the court.
'CJ was happy to lose that bet,' he said to laughter.
Prof Jayakumar also noted that both sides agreed to third-party dispute settlement, now a key tenet of Singapore's foreign policy in managing disputes.
Professor Koh said they decided to write the book to distil the lessons they had learnt from the case - Singapore's first at the ICJ - and share them with colleagues as well as the public.
CJ Chan, in his speech, noted that Pedra Branca was 'not an easy case by any standard'. The written pleadings alone of each side filled more than 2,600 pages.
'This is a case where history was part of the legal arguments, and law was part of the historical arguments,' he said.
'Ultimately, the majority of the court decided that Malaysia had history on its side, and Singapore had international law on its side, and this is expressed in the final disposition of the judgment.'
The authors will donate their royalties from the book sales to the proposed centre for international law at the National University of Singapore, which aims to nurture a new generation of Asian international lawyers.
Pedra Branca: Behind the scenes
Straits Times 20 Dec 08;
Pedra Branca was in the spotlight last year when the International Court of Justice in The Hague heard Singapore and Malaysia make their case for the island. A new book by Deputy Prime Minister S. Jayakumar and Ambassador-at-Large Tommy Koh, who played key roles in the case, sheds light on previously undisclosed facets of the case
By Zakir Hussain
THE first inkling that something was afoot came in 1977, when Singapore's Foreign Affairs Ministry (MFA) learnt that a Malaysian navy lieutenant commander had made inquiries about the status of Pedra Branca.
Then in April the following year, the then Counsellor at the Singapore High Commission in Kuala Lumpur, Mr Kishore Mahbubani, reported back on a conversation he had with a Malaysian Foreign Ministry official.
The Malaysians claimed to have completed a study showing that Horsburgh Lighthouse belonged to them.
The official said they would be writing to Singapore to claim sovereignty over Pedra Branca, where the lighthouse had stood since 1851, although no such communication was received.
In May 1978, Professor S. Jayakumar, dean of the National University of Singapore's Law Faculty, was in Geneva assisting the ministry for the third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).
He received a telex from then MFA deputy secretary Tan Boon Seng asking him to head to London right away to search for colonial documents on Pedra Branca that could not be located in Singapore. After consulting Professor Tommy Koh, then Singapore's permanent representative to the United Nations, Prof Jayakumar spent a few days looking up documents at the India Office in London and the Public Record Office in Kew.
He returned with a microfilm of documents. But he could not unearth an 1844 letter that Straits Settlements Governor W.J. Butterworth wrote to the Johor rulers, apparently about the island. He did, however, find copies of Johor's replies referring to Peak Rock, another island.
While at both offices, Prof Jayakumar was asked if he was the person who had come two days earlier for similar documents.
He concluded that the Malaysians must be searching for the same material.
Not long after, in December 1979, Malaysia published a map that, for the first time, included Pedra Branca as Malaysian territory. The move drew a formal protest from the Singapore Government.
Attempts to settle
Prime ministers on both sides raised the matter when they met for bilateral talks or at international events.
In a foreword to the book, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, who was prime minister at the time, said that while Singapore was surprised by Malaysia's claim in 1979, 'I saw no need for this claim to trouble our bilateral relationship'.
'I went out of my way to persuade Malaysian PM Hussein Onn, under whose watch this claim was made, to settle the issue in an open and straightforward manner,' Mr Lee wrote. 'I found Hussein fair-minded when we discussed the Pedra Branca issue during his visit to Singapore in May 1980. He said both sides should search for documents to prove ownership of Pedra Branca.'
After Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad took over in 1981 and visited Singapore in December that year, he and Mr Lee agreed that both sides should exchange documents to establish the legitimacy of their respective claims.
Then in the late 1980s, in what was an unprecedented unilateral move, Mr Lee instructed then Attorney-General Tan Boon Teik to go to Kuala Lumpur and show Singapore's documentary evidence to his Malaysian counterpart.
'I was prepared to take that step to get the Malaysians to know that we had a powerful legal case,' he wrote.
'But I also understood that it was difficult for any leader to give up sovereignty claims unilaterally.' This was why he proposed to Dr Mahathir in 1989 that if the matter was not settled after a document exchange, the dispute should be referred to the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
The need to find a political solution to the dispute became more urgent as throughout the 1980s, Malaysian Marine Police boats began to make regular incursions into waters around Pedra Branca.
The Singapore navy was under strict instructions to avoid escalating matters, and both sides acted with restraint.
Dr Mahathir was aware of the need not to let the situation get out of control, the authors note in the book. In 1989, he made an unannounced boat trip to the vicinity of Pedra Branca to personally size up the situation.
Recounting his visit at a function in Kuala Lumpur last year, Dr Mahathir said his boat was immediately intercepted by two Singapore naval vessels. As he did not want to cause an international incident, he asked his own boat to leave.
In 1994, Malaysia agreed to refer the matter to the ICJ.
Prof Jayakumar and Prof Koh noted that after studying Singapore's documents, Malaysian officials indicated privately that Singapore had a strong case, and that their claim was weak.
Why did they persist in their claim? The authors say the issue had become politicised, and it would probably have been untenable for a Malaysian leader to be seen making a territorial concession.
Difficulties
Before the ICJ could decide the case, both sides had to sign a Special Agreement consenting to the court hearing the case and specifying the precise question on which the court was to decide.
This took three rounds of talks over four years, and eventually both sides agreed that the court would be asked to determine whether sovereignty over each of three close maritime features - Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks and South Ledge - belonged to Malaysia or to Singapore.
Inter-agency coordination
From early on, Singapore set up an inter-ministry committee on the case, bringing together officials from the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC), MFA, the Defence and Law ministries and other relevant agencies.
A significant document they found was a 1953 letter from Johor's acting state secretary expressly disclaiming title over Pedra Branca - which the then Communications Ministry located in its archives in 1977.
Key members of the Singapore team, including the international counsel who would argue the case at the ICJ, visited Pedra Branca for a first-hand feel.
The book also reveals that Prof Jayakumar made his own boat trip to the island as early as 1988 with then Communications and Information Minister Yeo Ning Hong - and faced a storm so huge that the ropes securing their lifeboat snapped and the crockery on board was smashed.
Two men on a fishing boat they passed by earlier that day died in that storm.
Dilemmas
Once Malaysia agreed to a third party settlement before the ICJ in 1994, Prof Jayakumar asked Mr Sivakant Tiwari - then head of the civil division at the AGC - to list international lawyers who could help argue Singapore's case.
The team also decided to put forward Prof Koh as Singapore's judge ad hoc on the ICJ as he had wide international diplomatic experience.
A state can appoint such a judge when it appears before the ICJ and does not have its national on the bench.
But one of Singapore's counsel, Prof Alain Pellet, had reservations about Prof Koh being Singapore's judge ad hoc as this could attract objections because he was involved in preparing Singapore's case.
Prof Koh could have withdrawn from the team, but after weighing all the considerations, the Government decided to rule out Prof Koh as judge ad hoc as it was not worth running the risk of having Malaysia object to his appointment.
Singapore then decided on Judge P.S. Rao from India, who had been closely involved during negotiations on Unclos.
But another dilemma emerged when then Attorney-General Chan Sek Keong was appointed chief justice in 2006.
While he had been closely involved in steering Singapore's preparations, some in the team were concerned that his inclusion in the team could raise eyebrows. This was because it was unusual for the chief justice of any country to plead before the ICJ.
'Would it blur the distinctions between the executive and the judiciary? Would foreign critics who attack the independence of our judiciary use this as an additional argument?' the authors write.
After discussions, the team felt it was important that Singapore had the best talent to win the case. And so it was in Singapore's interest to have CJ Chan continue his work on the case.
The matter was discussed with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Cabinet colleagues, who had no doubts that CJ Chan would be an asset, and that there was nothing improper about him leading Singapore's team to The Hague.
It helped that CJ Chan, Prof Koh and Prof Jayakumar had known one another for a long time and were law school contemporaries. Then Attorney-General Chao Hick Tin was also a close friend.
Each of Singapore's three prime ministers also took a deep interest in the management of the dispute and preparations for the case. 'They showed full confidence in the team and did not attempt to micro-manage,' the authors said of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, Mr Goh Chok Tong and Mr Lee Hsien Loong.
Scouring the archives
As preparations for the case picked up pace, the team consulted local and foreign experts on international law and Malay history. Mr Tiwari chaired a committee to coordinate the effort systematically with MFA, the Ministry of Defence, the Maritime and Port Authority and National Archives.
From 2003 to 2006, the Archives deployed five full-time staff and 10 part-timers to locate archival records relating to Pedra Branca, piracy, the Malay concept of sovereignty and the status of the sultan of Johor, among others.
They spent over 20,000 research hours, identified more than 2,000 records, transcribed 650 historical manuscripts and acquired copies of records from Britain, India, Indonesia, the Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand.
During the oral hearing at The Hague last year, Archives staff were on standby here to assist the Singapore team.
Without their help, the AGC and international counsel would not have the materials with which to write their pleadings, the authors note.
Among the gems they uncovered was a letter written by the Dutch colonial authority in Indonesia acknowledging Pedra Branca as 'British territory', which Singapore used as evidence to back its case.
Preparing for the hearing
Prof Koh, Prof Jayakumar, CJ Chan and A-G Chao were to argue Singapore's case along with four international counsel - Queen's Counsel Ian Brownlie from England, Mr Rodman Bundy from the United States, Frenchman Alain Pellet and Italian Loretta Malintoppi. The team and counsel met several times to prepare written pleadings, counter-arguments and replies. Prof Jayakumar even approached Senior Counsel Davinder Singh for an independent and neutral view on the pleadings of both sides.
The team was encouraged by his response - that Singapore had the better argument.
At the hearings
Countries traditionally appear before the court in alphabetical order. But Malaysia's counsel Elihu Lauterpacht disagreed - presumably because he wanted Malaysia to have the last word. He suggested tossing a coin. But Singapore rejected this as being flippant, and both sides agreed to let the court decide. In September 2006, the registrar said the court drew lots: Singapore would go first.
While disappointed, Singapore took the development in its stride, going ahead on the basis that 'in starting first, we would be able to make a strong and lasting impression on the judges while their minds were still fresh'.
To prepare for the oral hearing, Prof Jayakumar, Prof Koh, CJ Chan and A-G Chao had a filmed rehearsal of their speeches at the MFA in October last year. A second rehearsal was held two weeks later, and a third at the Supreme Court, where CJ Chan and Prof Jayakumar made their case before Appeal Judges V.K. Rajah and Andrew Phang.
The mood of the team before it departed for The Hague was 'calm, confident and upbeat'.
'Although confident, we reminded ourselves not to be smug or underestimate the strength of the Malaysian legal team, which included several international legal luminaries. We knew they were going to give us a good fight.'
Both Prof Jayakumar and Prof Koh wrote that the Singapore and Malaysian media reported on the hearing in a balanced manner.
They said that 'when Malaysia was presenting its case, The Straits Times did such a good job reporting on Malaysia's arguments that we were told that some Singaporeans were betting 60:40 that Malaysia would win the case!'
'We did not know whether the punters had changed the odds after reading Singapore's presentations in the second round, but we were confident that we had answered all of Malaysia's points and left them with nothing substantial to say in their final speeches, except to spring a new argument on us,' they said.
Key factor for success
The authors note that while the legal arguments, well-written pleadings, persuasive oral arguments of team members and very good international counsel were all important to the successful outcome, the most important factor was that all agencies here worked closely together over three decades.
'The Pedra Branca story is an excellent illustration of the 'whole of government approach'.'
Although Singapore was awarded sovereignty over only Pedra Branca, MM Lee said in his foreword in the book that Singapore accepted the judgment without any qualification: 'Whichever way the judgment went, it is better for bilateral relations that a conclusive judgment has been made. This allows us to put aside this issue and move on to other areas of cooperation.'
Summing up, he said that Singapore must remain committed to upholding the rule of law in the relations between states.
If negotiations cannot resolve disputes, it is better to go to a third party than to allow the dispute to fester and sour ties. This was his approach, which his successors have also subscribed to.
About the case
THE dispute pitted Malaysia's claim of original title to Pedra Branca against Singapore's claim of taking lawful possession in 1847 and continuous exercise of sovereignty ever since.
The International Court of Justice was also asked to determine to whom nearby Middle Rocks and South Ledge belong.
Malaysia's arguments
Malaysia's legal case rested on its claim that the Sultanate of Johor had possessed title to the island since its establishment in 1512.
That original title was then transmitted to the State of Johor, and subsequently to the Federation of Malaya, which Johor joined in 1948.
To explain Singapore's presence on the island, Malaysia cited an 1844 letter that it claimed was a grant of permission by the Johor rulers to the British, for the latter to build and operate a lighthouse there.
Malaysia argued that the British and their successor, Singapore, were merely lighthouse operators and never exercised sovereignty over the island.
Singapore's arguments
Singapore said Pedra Branca was terra nullius, or no man's land, when the British took lawful possession of it in 1847.
Britain's conduct from 1847 to 1851, in financing and building Horsburgh Lighthouse, and building piers and rain channels on the island, showed its intention to take sovereign control of the island. Britain thus acquired title to the island through its peaceful occupation of it.
Subsequently, Britain and, later, Singapore, maintained that title through an open, continuous and effective display of state authority over the island from the 1850s up to the present.
In international law, such conduct is known as effectivites.
Singapore also noted that Malaysia never once protested against Singapore's exercise of sovereignty over the island.
Then, in 1979, Malaysia asserted a 'belated claim' by publishing a map that placed Pedra Branca within its territorial waters for the first time, it said.
Singapore also produced a 1953 letter from Johor's top civil servant at that time to the British authorities, in which the former wrote that 'Johore does not claim ownership of Pedra Branca'. That letter, Singapore argued, was a disclaimer of title by Johor that was binding on Malaysia.
The court's judgment
The court recognised that Johor had the original title to Pedra Branca, but ruled that by 1980, when the dispute over the island crystallised, sovereignty over Pedra Branca had passed to Singapore.
It found that the island remained in the sovereignty of Johor when the British made preparations in 1844 to build Horsburgh Lighthouse there.
But the court noted that sovereignty over territory might pass as a result of the failure of the state that has sovereignty to respond to concrete manifestations of the display of territorial sovereignty by the other state.
It noted that Johor's 1953 reply showed that as of then, Johor understood that it did not have sovereignty over Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh.
It found Singapore's activities since then - investigating shipwrecks, granting permission to Malaysian officials to visit and survey surrounding waters, installing military communications equipment, and proposing reclamation plans - a titre de souverain, that is, conduct that confers title on the party responsible.
It also noted the failure of Malaysia and its predecessors to respond to the conduct of Singapore or its predecessors, ruling that by 1980, sovereignty over Pedra Branca had passed to Singapore.
The court also found that the original title to Middle Rocks should remain with Malaysia as the successor to the Sultanate of Johor.
As for South Ledge, which falls within the overlapping territorial waters generated by both larger maritime features, the court ruled that it belongs to the state in whose territorial waters it is located.
Key dates
Straits Times 20 Dec 08;
1979
# Dec 21: Malaysia publishes a new map of its territorial waters and continental shelf, including Pedra Branca in its territory.
1980
# Feb 14: Singapore's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues a diplomatic note rejecting Malaysia's new claim over Pedra Branca.
1981
# Dec 17: Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad agree to resolve the ownership of Pedra Branca through an exchange of documents.
1989
# June: Foreign Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng meets his Malaysian counterpart Abu Hassan Omar in Geneva and suggests adjudication by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). A formal note is dispatched to Malaysia.
1992
# Feb 15: Singapore sends its legal arguments and documents proving Singapore's ownership of Pedra Branca to Malaysia. Malaysia responds with its own documents in June.
# May 25: Malaysia protests for the first time against the presence of Singapore navy vessels in waters around Pedra Branca. Singapore rejects the Malaysian protest.
1993
# Feb 4-6: First Malaysia-Singapore Consultations on sovereignty dispute in Kuala Lumpur. Officials agree that negotiations should be completed within two years. It is during these talks that the ownership of two nearby rocky outcrops, Middle Rocks and South Ledge, is raised.
1994
# Sept 6: Prime ministers Goh Chok Tong and Mahathir meet in Langkawi and agree to submit the Pedra Branca case to the ICJ. Officials meet nine months later.
1998
# April 14: Third and final Malaysia-Singapore meeting on submitting the case to the ICJ. Officials complete the text of a Special Agreement for referral to the ICJ.
2002
# Nov 7: Malaysia's Foreign Ministry suggests several dates for signing the Special Agreement, coinciding with proposed water talks.
But the talks were never held as the two countries failed to agree on the talks' precise agenda.
2003
# Feb 6: Singapore and Malaysia sign pact to refer Pedra Branca dispute to ICJ.
2004
# March 25: Singapore and Malaysia submit their first set of written arguments on the Pedra Branca dispute to the ICJ.
2007
# Nov 6-23: A three-week-long hearing before 16 judges of the ICJ at The Hague in the Netherlands begins. Singapore and Malaysia put up their respective cases.
2008
# May 16: A Joint Technical Committee set up by Singapore and Malaysia to enforce the judgment meets for the first time.
# May 23: The ICJ delivers its ruling, awarding Pedra Branca to Singapore, Middle Rocks to Malaysia, and South Ledge to the state in whose territorial waters it is located.
Pedra Branca: Through storm and fire
Teo Xuanwei, Today Online 20 Dec 08;
ON WHAT was supposed to be an overnight trip to Pedra Branca in 1988, then Law and Home Affairs Minister S Jayakumar got caught in a furious storm, which took the lives of two fishermen in another boat from Punggol.
:The winds were so ferocious that the ropes securing the lifeboat to the “old but sturdy PSA vessel, the :Mata Ikan:” he was travelling in snapped, and the crockery on board was smashed.
:The next year, aware of the need to prevent the festering territorial spat with Singapore from spiralling outof control, former Malaysian PrimeMinister Dr Mahathir Mohamad made an unannounced boat trip to the vicinity of the islet to personally size up the situation.
He left after two Singapore naval vessels intercepted his boat.
These and other nuggets — some dramatic, some technical, others amusing — are recounted in Pedra Branca: The Road to the World Court, co-authored by Ambassador-at-Large Tommy Koh and Deputy Prime Minister Jayakumar, on the twists and turns of the long-standing dispute, as well as the :massive amount of behind-the-scenes work.
Both men, who worked on the legal tussle for three decades until its resolution in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on May 23, describe the experience as a “labour of love”.
At the book launch on Friday, Prof Koh said it was Singapore’s first case in the ICJ and it was “important” to write a book distilling the lessons from it “to share with our colleagues and our future generations”.
Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, who headed the team of lawyers involved, said: “The Pedra Branca case is likely to be a unique event in the history of Singapore as it is unlikely that Singapore will ever again need to seek confirmation of her title to territory under international law.”
While the dispute only officially erupted in 1980 – after Singapore sent a protest note to Malaysia over their publication of a map – preparations for the Republic’s case had begun two years earlier. Prof Jayakumar, who was in Geneva for a United Nations conference, had received an urgent telex from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs asking him to head for London to search for relevant historical documents.
The hunt for other historical letters took public officers to countries like India and Holland; staff from the National Archives of Singapore trawled through mountains of records for years.
Just before the hearing started, the lawyers rehearsed their speeches, videotaping their efforts and critiquing each other’s delivery. Prof Jayakumar and CJ Chan went further – they staged their speeches before two Court of Appeal Judges in the Supreme Court.
While the team was at the Hague, a fire broke out in their hotel. In their haste, some left their passports in their rooms – but everyone remembered to take their laptops.
Both Prof Koh and CJ Chan celebrated their birthdays during the eight days of oral pleadings at The Hague. When Malaysia raised a fresh argument in their final oral submission, the Singapore team was anxious as they had no chance to address the judges again.
Prof Jayakumar wagered 10 euros with CJ Chan that the judges would ask a question enabling Singapore to respond – and they did.
Prof Jayakumar quipped: “I think CJ was happy to lose that bet.”
Prof S Jayakumar, Tommy Koh document Pedra Branca case in a book
S.Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia 19 Dec 08;
SINGAPORE: Two law professors with an interest in public international law have documented Singapore's case on Pedra Branca into a book for the layman to understand.
The idea for the book - "Pedra Branca, The Road to the World Court" - was conceived by Deputy Prime Minister S Jayakumar and Ambassador-at-Large Tommy Koh during the public hearings at the International Court of Justice at The Hague in November last year.
The authors were kept busy by autograph hunters at the book launch on Friday. The launch was officiated by Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, who was part of the Singapore team at the hearings.
He said Pedra Branca is unique to Singapore as it is unlikely the Republic will ever need to again seek confirmation of the territory under international law.
Chief Justice Chan said: "I am sure that the authors, like the rest of the Singapore team would have very much liked to title the book to be 'Pedra Branca - Three Came Home'.
"Alas that is not to be. One is lost, another is in limbo. But all the same, we must count our blessings that it is the one, the one that counted, that came home."
The book traces the origins of the Pedra Branca dispute, how Britain, and later Singapore, acquired sovereignty over the island and subsequently maintained and operated the Horsburgh Lighthouse on it since 1851.
It also documents how the dispute arose after Malaysia made its claim over Pedra Branca in 1979 and how the Republic managed the dispute over three decades before its final resolution on 23 May 2008 at the International Court of Justice.
Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew has written a foreword for the 195-page book.
In it, he said Singapore's Prime Minister must try to establish good, stable and equitable relations with the Malaysian government.
Mr Lee said what is important is how both sides can manage and amicably resolve issues that must crop up from time to time because of widespread interactions without souring the long-term overall bilateral relationship.
He said that the Pedra Branca issue was a story worth telling. He added that the court's judgement - awarding sovereignty over Pedra Branca to Singapore and sovereignty over Middle Rocks to Malaysia - was a partial vindication of Singapore's position.
Mr Lee said naturally, Singapore was disappointed, because the Republic's team believed, as did its foreign counsel, that any court would decide that sovereignty over all three features - Pedra Branca, Middle Rocks and South Ledge - went together.
But he wrote in his foreward that whichever way the judgement went, it was better for bilateral relations that a conclusive judgement had been made as this would allow both countries to put aside the issue and move on to other areas of co-operation.
The minister mentor stressed that Singapore must remain committed to upholding the rule of law in the relations between states. If a dispute cannot be resolved by negotiations, it was better to refer it to a third party dispute settlement mechanism than to allow it to fester and sour bilateral relations.
Mr Lee said this was his approach and subsequent Singapore prime ministers have continued to subscribe to it.
Also speaking at the launch was Professor Tommy Koh, co-author of the book. He said both Singapore and Malaysia have managed the dispute in a responsible manner.
He added: "When there was a danger that the escalation of confrontation between the two navies and marine police around Pedra Branca could lead to armed conflict, Singapore brought this to the attention of the Malaysian prime minister.
"And when the Youth Wing of the Malaysian Islamic Party or PAS threatened to invade Pedra Branca to plant a Malaysian flag, Dr Mahathir Mohamad stopped them and warned that it could lead to war."
The authors of the book, hoping it will reach as many people as possible, have kept the language in the book simple, avoiding legal jargon.
There are also some interesting snippets in the book which the public do not know about.
Deputy Prime Minister S Jayakumar said: "In 1989, Dr Mahathir made a quiet boat ride to the Pedra Branca vicinity to size up for himself the potentially tense situation on the ground.
"Our team's preparations included rehearsals of speeches. CJ and I even tried our speeches in the Supreme Court before two Court of Appeal Judges."
2,000 copies of the book are now on sale. - CNA/vm
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