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ndonesia had to find a balanced approach to the handling of a North Korean cargo ship detained under United Nations sanctions in its territory since last year, the Foreign Ministry has said, as Jakarta dealt with a “regulatory vacuum” preventing it from taking clear action in response.

In April last year, the Navy captured the MV Wise Honest in waters off Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, as it was transporting 25,500 tons of coal worth an estimated US$3 million to a potential buyer in Samarinda.

The United States said the ship clearly violated UN Security Council sanctions, set up as part of a push to choke funding for Pyongyang’s nuclear and ballistic missiles development program by banning North Korean exports including coal, iron, lead, textiles and seafood to other countries. Under the international sanctions regime, parties found to be doing business with Pyongyang will be blacklisted by countries like the US.

However, the ship was seized and its captain was charged with violating Indonesia’s 2008 Shipping Law, after it was found to be registered under the flags of Sierra Leone and North Korea. The Balikpapan District Court found the captain, Kim Chung Son, guilty and fined him Rp 400 million ($27,902) in November.

The Foreign Ministry’s director for international security and disarmament, Grata Endah Werdaningtyas, explained that Jakarta had to find a workaround for carrying out UN sanctions, owing to the lack of a national legal umbrella — a so-called UN act.

”In the case of the Wise Honest, there really is no regulation that can become the basis for implementation of obligations under the [relevant] UN Security Council resolution. As a result, we had to adjust and carry out our responsibilities based on prevailing laws and regulations,” she said last week.

In the meantime, the US had to submit a request for mutual legal assistance (MLA) by Indonesia in order to extradite the ship under allegations of possible money laundering, as well as violating US and UN sanctions. Washington built its case against the ship based on the government’s civil assets forfeiture complaint, filed in a federal court in New York’s Southern District.

Jakarta granted the MLA request earlier this year and appointed the National Police’s Criminal Investigation Department to execute the seizure and transfer of the ship, after the captain of the ship paid off his fine.

The MLA grant allowed the US to seize one of Pyongyang’s largest bulk carriers and take it to American Samoa, where it is docked at Pago Pago.

Grata said Indonesia tried to maintain a balanced approach in the matter, without bias to the actors involved.

“The point is we have to find a balance because — whether we like it or not — we have good relationships with all the parties involved including North Korea and South Korea, and not just the US,” she said, further noting that Indonesian businesses also stood to lose if they got involved.

On the other hand, Indonesia was also able to send a tacit message to North Korea to respect its territory and refrain from violating international law in its waters, she added.

The government is still looking into the possibility of drafting a national law to become the legal basis for enforcing obligations under international treaties, especially with regard to legally binding UN Security Council sanctions. “Our plan is to have the draft finalized before we complete the council membership. The studies have begun and hopefully we can start drafting the instrument in the second half of this year,” she said.

Indonesia joined the UNSC in January as a nonpermanent member, and has since made a possible UN act one of its priority objectives. To this end, officials have conducted studies in the Netherlands, the US and Australia to see how they crafted their legal instruments. (tjs)