North Borneo dispute
[5] The 1878 agreement was written in Malay using the Jawi script, in which the contentious wordings are as follows:sudah kuredhai pajakkan dengan keredhaan dan kesukaan kita sendiri kepada tuan Gustavus Baron von Overbeck yang tinggal dalam negeri Hong Kong dan kepada Alfred Dent Esquire yang tinggal dalam negeri London... sampai selama-lamanya sekalian perintah dan kuasa yang kita punya yang takluk kepada kita di tanah besar Pulau Borneo dari Sungai Pandasan di sebelah barat sampai sepanjang semua tanah di pantai sebelah timur sejauh Sungai Sibuku di sebelah selatan.
[28] While the Sulu claim rests on the treaty signed by Sultan Jamalul Alam of Sulu appointing Baron de Overbeck as Dato Bendahara and Raja Sandakan on 22 January 1878, a further, earlier treaty signed by Sultan Abdul Momin of Brunei appointed Baron de Overbeck as the Maharaja Sabah, Rajah Gaya and Sandakan.
Chief Justice Charles Frederick Cunningham Macaskie of the High Court of North Borneo ruled on the share entitlement of each claimant.
[citation needed] The United States–based government also refused to intervene in the dispute, officially maintaining a neutral stance on the matter and continuing to recognise Sabah[according to whom?]
[citation needed] Philippine Foreign Secretary Narciso Ramos gave a speech at the UN General Assembly on 15 October, calling for the dispute to be settled in international courts.
][61] While Aquino's successor Fidel V. Ramos was similarly unable to obtain consensus to drop the claim, he officially put the dispute aside in order to improve ties with Malaysia.
[59] Prior to the formation of the Malaysia, two commissions of enquiry visited North Borneo, along with neighbouring Sarawak, to establish the state of public opinion there regarding merger with Malaya (and Singapore).
The Commission found that 'About one third of the population of each territory [i.e. of North Borneo and of Sarawak] strongly favours early realisation of Malaysia without too much concern over terms and conditions.
In July 1963, at a tripartite meeting in Manila between Indonesian president Sukarno, Philippines president Diosdado Macapagal and Malayan Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, the three heads of state signed an agreement known as the Manila Accord where Indonesia and the Philippines stated that they would welcome the formation of Malaysia "provided the support of the people of the Borneo territories is ascertained by an independent and impartial authority, the Secretary-General of the United Nations or his representative," and provided further that "the inclusion of North Borneo as part of Malaysia would not prejudice either the claim or any right thereunder" by the Philippines to the territory.
Pursuant to the accord, a United Nations mission to Borneo was established that same year, comprising members of the UN Secretariat from Argentina, Brazil, Ceylon, Czechoslovakia, Ghana, Pakistan, Japan and Jordan.
In a note verbale dated 7 February 1966, the government of Malaysia put itself on record: "that it has never moved away from the Manila Accord of 31 July 1963 and the Joint Statement accompanying it and reiterates its assurance that it will abide by these agreements, particularly paragraph 12 of the said Manila Accord" (where Malaysia agreed that the inclusion of North Borneo in the Federation of Malaysia would not prejudice either the claim or any right of the Philippines to the territory) and "paragraph 8 of the Joint Statement" (where all parties agreed to seek a just and expeditious solution to the dispute by means of negotiation, conciliation and arbitration, judicial settlement, or other peaceful means of the parties' own choice in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations).
[46] In other words, this note verbale affirmed Malaysia's recognition of the still unresolved territorial dispute as regards North Borneo despite the findings of the Cobbold Commission or the 1963 UN Mission.
A joint communique by Malaysia and the Philippines dated 3 June 1966 also provided that both parties have agreed to abide by the Manila Accord for the peaceful settlement of the Philippine claim to North Borneo (now called "Sabah") by "[recognizing] the need of sitting together, as soon as possible, for the purpose of clarifying the claim and discussing the means of settling it to the satisfaction of both parties" in consonance with said Accord and its accompanying Joint Statement.
[46] In 1968, the governments of Malaysia and the Philippines agreed to hold talks in Bangkok for the purpose of clarifying the territorial dispute and discussing the modes of settling it, as provided under the terms of the Manila Accord.
As reflected in the official records of a plenary meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, the Malaysian delegation reportedly declared during such talks that "this exercise under the Joint Communique is over and done with" and that they "stalked out of the conference room, thus bringing the talks to an abrupt end," despite publicly announcing a few days earlier that they would discuss with their Philippine counterparts the modes of settlement for the issue.
[75] The alleged masterminds, however, included leading generals in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), Defense Undersecretary Manuel Syquio, and Marcos himself.
[79] In addition, the Marcos government committed massacres and waged anti-Moro war and abuse under Martial Law, further exacerbating the situation in Mindanao.
[81][82] In September 1985, 15-20 armed foreign pirates from the neighbouring Philippines landed in Lahad Datu, and killed at least 21 people and injured 11 others in a series of robberies and random shootings.
Indonesia objected to the application and stated that the "Philippines raises no claim with respect to [the two islands] and maintains that the legal status of North Borneo is not a matter on which the Court has been asked to rule".
Malaysia further contended that "the issue of sovereignty over Ligitan and Sipadan is completely independent of that of the status of North Borneo" and that "the territorial titles are different in the two cases".
[87] The application was ultimately rejected by the ICJ because of the non-existence of an "interest of legal nature" such that the court did not find how the decision on the case concerning the two islands would affect the Philippines' territorial claim to North Borneo.
[88][89] On 11 February 2013, a group of approximately 100–200 individuals, some of them armed, arrived by boat in Lahad Datu, Sabah, from Simunul island, Tawi-Tawi, in the southern Philippines.
The Philippine military in Sulu said that the allegation was without basis but confirmed that local officials organised a meeting where they discussed bolstering maritime security in the area.
[106][107] Former prime minister of Malaysia Najib Razak defended his government's move, stating that Jamalul Kiram III, one of the claimants of the Sulu throne, launched the attack in 2013.
[106] Najib defended the Malaysian government's move of not sending any representatives there because Malaysia did not recognise the Spanish court as a venue to resolve arbitration issues.
Malaysia then filed a suit at the Civil and Criminal Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid; where the court later decided on 29 June 2021 to nullify the appointment of Dr. Gonzalo Stampa, the arbitrator of the case, and to stop all the proceedings of the case, because the purported intentions of the heirs of the Sulu Sultanate were to reclaim the state of Sabah from Malaysia, thus threatening the integrity of Malaysian sovereignty.
[123] In late June 2023, a Dutch court of appeal dismissed a bid by the eight claimants to the Sultanate to enforce the US$15 billion arbitration award against the Malaysian Government.
[126] On 10 November, the Madrid Court filed criminal charges against Stampa over his role in handing the US$14.92 billion arbitration award to the eight Sultanate claimants.
[127] He was sentenced to six months in prison and banned from acting as an arbitrator for one year for “knowingly disobeying rulings and orders from the Madrid High Court of Justice”.
[128] According to Law360, the Spanish courts’ decision to move ahead with criminal proceedings against Stampa marked a significant victory for the Malaysian government.
