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Horsburgh Lighthouse
By peace | May 23, 2008
The Horsburgh Lighthouse on this Singapore’s outlying island was built by the British in 1851.
The tiny island of Pedra Branca, where Singapore administers a lighthouse, sits at the entrance to the Singapore Strait about 30 km (19 miles) east of the city state and 15 km off peninsular Malaysia’s southern coast.
Pedra Branca or Pulau Batu Puteh is an outcrop of rocks situated where the Singapore Strait meets the South China Sea. Singapore refers to it as Pedra Branca (”white rock” in Portuguese), and Malaysia as Pulau Batu Puteh (”island of the white rock” in Malay)
The Horsburgh Lighthouse was named after Captain James Horsburgh (September 28, 1762 - May 14, 1836), a Scottish hydrographer from the East India Company, who mapped many seaways around Singapore in the late 18th century and early 19th century. He was called “The Nautical Oracle of the World”. His charts and books allowed ships to navigate through treacherous areas of the ocean, saving many lives and property on the seas between China and India.
The island, together with nearby islands Middle Rocks and South Ledge, was the subject of a territorial dispute between Singapore and Malaysia that was eventually passed to the International Court of Justice. On May 23, 2008, the Court decided that Pedra Branca is under the sovereignty of Singapore while the Middle Rocks belong to Malaysia. The other outcrop, South Ledge, is subject to interpretation of the ICJ’s judgement. The Court noted that South Ledge is a low-tide elevation, that is, a naturally formed area of land which is surrounded by and above water at low tide but submerged at high tide. The Court also noted that the outcrop falls within the apparently overlapping territorial waters generated by the mainland of Malaysia, Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh and Middle Rocks. The Court concluded that for the reasons explained above sovereignty over South Ledge, as a low-tide elevation, belongs to the State in the territorial waters of which it is located.
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