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In the early 1990s Indonesia and Malaysia were locked in a longrunning and bitter dispute over the ownership of two tiny islands in the Sulawesi Sea and the associated question of maritime boundaries in this area rich in oil and gas deposits. Neither government had ever referred a dispute with another state to the International Court of Justice but in 1996 President Soeharto agreed to Malaysia's proposal to ask the ICJ to issue a ruling on the dispute between the two countries. In 1998 Indonesia and Malaysia asked the ICJ to rule on the ownership of the islands. They did not, however, ask it to rule on the far more important question of their maritime boundaries in the Sulawesi Sea. The ICJ's judgement in 2002 that the islands belonged to Malaysia therefore left that question unresolved. The article argues that because of Indonesia's experience with the ICJ and the high stakes involved for both countries any resolution of the boundary dispute -which came close to open confiict in 2005 -will almost certainly be the result of state-to-state negotiations rather than a ruling by the ICJ or any outside body.

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John G. Butcher has written a book that aims to give a detailed account of the development of marine fisheries in Southeast Asia over a period of about 150 years. Needless to say, it is an overwhelming task. The region covers some of the world's leading fishing nations, each of which is a large and complex region of extensive maritime activities-countries like Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. From the perspective of "pushing forward the frontier," the author has given himself a leitmotif to guide him through countless varieties and local developments. His main focus in every case study is the reaction of fish resources to the pressure placed upon them by commercial fishing activities. In other words, the book has a main axis consisting of subjects [fishermen], objects of desire [marine resources], and the relation between the two in the form of constant ingenuity in the search for new resources and fishing methods.