East Timor Case 1995

East Timor Case 1995
Same year that Western Sahara was decided as an advisory opinion by the international Court
of Justice in 1975, the Indonesian military invaded East Timor while Portugal was in the process
of decolonizing the island. Indonesia then proceeded to incorporate the region into the
Indonesian Republic. following the invasion the UN Security Council called on Indonesia to
withdraw from East Timor and to respect the Timorese right to self-determination, but
Indonesia refused and declared East Timor to be its 27th province. its occupation of East Timor
was brutal and many people lost their lives in the occupation and in the resistance to it.
between 1975 and 1982 several UN resolutions dealt with the situation in East Timor. the
United Nations never officially recognized Indonesia’s declaration of sovereignty over East
Timor instead the UN continually made statements deploring the invasion and recognize
Portugal as a sole administrative power in East Timor, that decolonization process had never
been completed, none of the nations that were members of the UN formally recognized
Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor but that changed when Australia formally recognized
Indonesian sovereignty over East Timor. now before Indonesia’s invasion Australia
unsuccessfully attempted to negotiate and establish a seabed boundary with Portugal which
previously had controlled East Timor. when we talking more about seabed boundaries, when
we talk about control over the continental shelves, the continental shelf adjacent East Timor
had not been included in the continental shelf agreements between Australia and Indonesia
that have been executed in the 1970s, because there was what was known as the East Timor
gap and it was control over this gap region that Australia wished to regulate through an
understanding with Indonesia as the occupying power in East Timor. Now, the reason for this
was that in 1974 it was discovered that the Timor gap region had an enormous oil and gas
production potential and since oil companies were not likely to enter exploration contracts in
disputed territory after the Indonesian invasion in 1975, Australia and Indonesia began
negotiating the Timor gap treaty and on December 11, 1989. Indonesia and Australia signed the
Timor gap treaty and divided the waters and the seabed between East Timor and Australia into
areas which would be used to determine the division of revenue from oil production. that
treaty entered into force as between the two states in February 1991 and as you might imagine
this treaty fueled a substantial amount of indignation. Portugal took Australia to the
international Court of Justice in response. Portugal opposed the validity of the Timor gap treaty
claiming that Australia breached international law by entering into a treaty with Indonesia.
that's because East Timor was still officially insofar as international community was concerned
of Portuguese colony and Portugal argued that Australia’s negotiation and ratification of the
Timor gap treaty infringes the rights of the people of East Timor to self-determination and a
permanent sovereignty over its natural resources. Indonesia however refused to accept the
court's jurisdiction and competence, and Australia argued that as a consequence the
international Court of Justice lacked jurisdiction in this dispute that because the court would
have had to determine the lawfulness of the Indonesian invasion to reach a conclusion.
Ultimately, as to whether this treaty between Australia and Indonesia that purported to divvy
up the seabed associated with these Timor was lawful and so for the court to determine if
Indonesia acted lawfully it would have to have Indonesia as a party before it. Now, we didn't
talk specifically about this matter when we discussed the jurisdiction of the ICJ but the court
has held on a semi regular basis that it may not render a judgment that affects the country's
rights unless that state consents to the courts jurisdiction. Portugal argued in response that the
lawfulness of Indonesia’s actions did not need to be determined in this particular dispute. that's
because the rights Australia breached were rights erga omnes and specifically, the right to self
determination of the East Timor people were rights erga omnes. erga omnes is a Latin
expression that means toward all. all erga omnes obligations amount to an obligation existing
at customary international law that a state over the entire international community. and not
just one or several other States. and so that means that every single state has a legal interest in
having that erga omnes obligation fulfilled, including in this case Portugal. therefore Portugal
could require Australia to respect these rights, erga omnes rights of the people of East Timor to
self determination and as the extract in the material suggests the ICJ agreed that the right to
self determination was a right erga omnes, a right that any member of the international
community could require be enforced but, said the court, it could not rule on the lawfulness of
a non parties actions that is indonesia's regardless of whether the underlying claim involved a
right erga omnes and so this case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction in 1995. and so the
Court proved utterly useless. but ultimately things changed in East Timor. the authoritarian
Indonesian leader died in 1998 and his successor announced a referendum for East Timor in
terms of autonomy. much to the horror of the military the governments of Indonesia and
Portugal signed an agreement in may 1999 giving a mandate to the UN to conduct such a
referendum. and the vote took place in late August 1999. with little the violence that had been
feared the results of the polls were announced in September and almost 80% of the people of
East Timor had voted for independence. but then armed militia groups with both tacit and
active backing from the Indonesian military commenced to rampage through East Timor and
10s of thousands of pro independence East timorese were rounded up and either killed or
removed from the region. in the face of international condemnation the Indonesian
government eventually accepted UN troops into East Timor and Australia led an international
force in East Timor on September of 1999. and then the United Nations transitional
administration in East Timor was established in October of 1999, to oversee the administration
of East Timor as it transitioned to full independence in that country. in fact it did form as a state
in 2002 and held its first elections at that time, so East Timor is an example of self
determination achieved not through process of international law, but by force of arms and so
with all that do we throw up our hands and wonder once again why we bother becoming
international lawyers? do we simply shrug and read more realist political relations theory?

East Timor Case 1995

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

East Timor Case 1995

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

East Timor Case 1995

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

East Timor Case 1995

You might also like