Pedra Branca is located near the eastern entrance of the Straits of Singapore, about 44km east of mainland Singapore.
The dispute over Pedra Branca dates back to 1979, when Malaysia published a map indicating that the island was within the country’s territorial waters.
The matter was brought to the ICJ in 2003, and on May 23, 2008, it ruled that Singapore had sovereignty over Pedra Branca, while Middle Rocks was awarded to Malaysia and South Ledge belonged to the state in whose territorial waters it is located.
Malaysia filed two applications after the ruling, the first on Feb 2, 2017, to revise the ICJ’s 2008 judgment.
Its case was hinged on three documents discovered in the National Archives of the United Kingdom that demonstrated officials at the highest levels “did not consider Singapore had sovereignty over Pedra Branca” during the 1950s to 1960s.
The second application on Jun 30, 2017, sought an interpretation of the same ICJ judgment.
It requested that the ICJ declare the waters surrounding Pedra Branca to be Malaysia’s and, in turn, the sovereignty of South Ledge belongs to Malaysia – a move that MFA described as “puzzling”, “unnecessary” and “without merit”.
Public hearings for the two cases were scheduled for July 2018 at The Hague. However, Putrajaya decided to drop the two cases to revise and to interpret the judgment in May 2018.
In June 2019, then-Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad outlined that Putrajaya had accepted the ICJ ruling over Pedra Branca, citing it as an example of how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states have worked together based on mutual respect.