While for most countries baselines are usually their coastlines at low tide, for an archipelagic country like Indonesia, baselines are the belt of lines connecting the outermost points of its outlying islands.

The CLCS recommendations confirmed an “additional” continental shelf of around the size of Madura Island, located to the west of Sumatra, as being part of Indonesia’s maritime jurisdiction.

According to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982, to which Indonesia is a party, a coastal state is entitled to continental shelf that may extend beyond 200 nautical miles (370.4 kilometers) from its baselines, in addition to its territorial sea boundary extending 12 nautical miles, its contiguous zone extending 24 nautical miles and its exclusive economic zone of 200 nautical miles. Continental shelves that extend beyond 200 nautical miles from national baselines are often termed “Extended Continental Shelves” (ECS). While the outer limits of other maritime zones can be defined unilaterally or bilaterally with neighboring states, the outer limits of ECS should be defined through a submission to the UN CLCS before a particular deadline.

For Indonesia and many other states, the deadline was May 13, 2009. Indonesia managed to make a partial submission for seabed area to the west of Sumatra on June 16, 2008. After thorough assessment by CLCS, the recommendation has been provided (Antara, Aug. 31, 2010), enabling Indonesia to establish “final and binding” outer limits of ECS.

Procedures to define the outer limits of ECS are governed by article 76 of the Convention. Technically speaking, in order for a coastal state to confirm whether or not it is entitled to ECS it has to understand the relief/morphology of seabed and the thickness of relevant sediment.

For these purposes, complex and expensive surveys need to be performed, involving expertise in geology, geophysics, hydrography, and geodesy. Such surveys are designed to identify the depth of the ocean floor, the location of the foot of the continental slope and sedimentary rock thicknesses.

In the Indonesian case, several agencies have been involved, including the  Foreign Ministry, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, the National Coordinating Agency for Surveys and Mapping, the Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology, the Indonesian Institute of Science, the Agency for Marine and Fisheries Research, the Hydro-Oceanographic Office of the Indonesian Navy and Marine Geology Indonesia.

With regard to survey expenses, a similar survey conducted by Australia for the area in the Indian Ocean in 2009, for example, cost around A$80,000 per day (US$75,600).

The author was involved in such an expensive survey, one leg/session of which took around one month
to accomplish.

This fact can lead to a question whether the results are worth the trouble. One can easily question whether the continental shelf submission is the right thing to do, considering that Indonesia faces a lot of other issues. Food security, education, natural disasters and healthcare just to mention a few.

Seabed areas are a matter of future investment. We might not know yet what exactly lies beneath the ocean but hopes and possibilities are there. Traditional resources such as oil and gas are certainly the most obviously attractive resources to utilize.

In addition, other alternative resources such as living organisms for potential medicines and polymetallic nodules are also possible for exploration and utilization. However, the possibility will be discovered only through proper marine scientific research (MSR). Undoubtedly, such research requires a multidisciplinary approach involving multiple institutions.

Such large areas, which are relatively far away from the mainland, require extra effort for monitoring and management. No country, least of all a profoundly littoral one such as Indonesia, should neglect its maritime boundaries so that other parties can come and make use of the area.

Making a submission and therefore potentially increasing the size of the country is something governments are inevitably keen on (or, alternatively, feel that they cannot miss out on). This is mainly to clarify the outer limits of sovereignty and jurisdiction, which are essential for a country.

The recent tension between Indonesia and Malaysia in the waters off Tanjung Berakit is a good example that maritime boundaries/jurisdiction and access to resources are important issues between states (see the author’s opinion in The Jakarta Post, Sept. 13, 2010). Therefore, securing larger an area is not the end of the story. With greater an area comes greater responsibility.

The CLCS’s recommendation to Indonesia’s submission is surely good news. In addition, this is not the only ECS Indonesia has been preparing. Two more locations: North of Papua and south of Nusa Tenggara are currently being prepared for submission to the UN CLCS. Should these two sets of submissions be recommended by CLCS, Indonesia may likely confirm even larger continental shelf.

More importantly, Indonesia will be entitled to benefits form natural resources discovered therein.

However, it is worth noting that extended continental shelf resources exclude those of the water column above the seabed (i.e. free-swimming fish) but do include sedentary species. Sedentary species are organisms which, “at the harvestable stage”, are attached to the seabed or the subsoil, pursuant to Article 77 of the Convention.

In short, there may be oil/gas/sedentary living resources in the new continental shelf but there may also be resources that we don’t know much about yet. These could be very significant in the future so more MSR is required to find out for the greater good of Indonesia.


The writer is a lecturer in the Department of Geodetic Engineering, Gadjah Mada University. He is an alumnus of the UN-Nippon Foundation Fellowship in Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea. This is his personal opinion.

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