An Analysis Of Indonesia's Approach To Maritime Disputes And Its Influencing Factors

Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world.Its unique geographical attributes have led to complex sea area delimitation disputes among Indonesia and many neighbors including China.With the promulgation of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the competition of oil resources in recent years,the disputes in some parts of Indonesia have intensified.Since the founding of the Indonesia,successive Indonesian governments have attached great importance to the defense and maintenance of the country's territorial sovereignty.They have adopted legal means,negotiation and consultation channels,and joint development channels to solve the maritime delimitation problem peacefully with most surrounding countries.As far as these three approaches,Indonesia will be less likely to use legal channels in subsequent disputes over the sea in the future,not only because Indonesia lost their claims in resolving the sovereignty of Sipadan and Ligitan,but also because there exists disadvantages in resorting to the International Court of Justice to resolve disputes over sea areas.Considering the complexity of the interests of the sea disputes involved,it is unlikely that Indonesia will choose the joint development model to resolve the sea area demarcation conflict with neighboring countries in the future;With the rich experience in dealing with disputes in the Indonesian sea area,it is more likely that Indonesia will resolve the issue of demarcation of the sea area through negotiation.Through the analysis of the resolved sea dispute cases,it is found that Indonesia does not blindly choose the above three solutions when dealing with sea area demarcation disputes,but has its own deep-seated considerations.The four factors which are political factors,economic factors,attitudes of conflicting countries and dispute resolution with conflicting countries will have an important impact on the choice of disputes in Indonesian seas.