The Rohingya Boat People in Indonesia's Territorial Waters: Navigating the Dilemma Between Sovereignty, Humanitarianism, and Maritime Security

Abstract

The arrival of Rohingya boat people in Indonesia's territorial waters presents a complex policy dilemma involving state sovereignty, humanitarian obligations, and maritime security. Recurrent refugee movements, particularly in Aceh, affect maritime law enforcement, regional stability, and Indonesia's political responsibility, all amid the absence of a comprehensive national refugee framework. This article examines Indonesia's policy dilemma through the perspectives of maritime sovereignty, international maritime law, and non-traditional maritime security. Employing a qualitative library-research approach with a transdisciplinary lens, the study analyzes international legal instruments, national regulations, reports from international organizations, and scholarly literature on forced migration and maritime security, supported by UNHCR arrival data for 2023-2025 and a matrix of applicable international, national, and local regulations. Unlike previous studies that treat the Rohingya boat-people issue as either a purely humanitarian or a purely legal matter, this article's novelty lies in its integrative framework, situating the issue simultaneously within legal certainty and citizenship, state sovereignty, socio-cultural accommodation, and non-traditional maritime security. The findings indicate that Indonesia's response remains pragmatic and reactive, prioritizing humanitarian considerations without integrating them into national maritime defense and security strategy, thereby producing policy ambiguity that weakens sovereignty enforcement and creates vulnerabilities exploitable by organized transnational crime within territorial waters.