Reconciling Indonesia's Illegal Fishing Enforcement Policy with Unclos 1982

Abstract

Indonesia's strategic maritime geography, situated at the confluence of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, endows it with abundant fishery resources while simultaneously exposing its waters to illegal fishing by foreign vessels. Among Indonesia's enforcement responses, the sinking of foreign vessels is the most assertive and the most contested under international law, yet its precise legal foundation is rarely examined as a coherent whole. This study analyzes how the vessel-sinking policy can be reconciled with the enforcement limits imposed by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) 1982. The research employs a normative legal method with statute and conceptual approaches, drawing on primary, secondary, and tertiary legal materials analyzed qualitatively. The results show that national law Articles 71A, 73, 74, 77, 85, 93, 94, and 102 of Law Number 45 of 2009 amending Law Number 31 of 2004 on Fisheries provides administrative, monetary, and criminal sanctions, while Articles 60(3) and 73 of UNCLOS 1982 authorize Indonesia to enforce its national law within its jurisdiction subject to flag-state notification through diplomatic channels. The novelty of this study is the construction of a three-layer legality framework Article 69(4) and Article 71A of the Fisheries Law and Supreme Court Circular Number 1 of 2015 demonstrating that vessel sinking operates as a measure against the instrument of the crime rather than the person, thereby remaining within the boundaries of UNCLOS.