Éditorial/Editorial

As we were preparing this issue to go to press, on 6 November 2024, the Cour de cassation issued a much awaited decision, which may well bring the saga of the Sultan of Sulu to a conclusion, at least as far as France is concerned. For those readers who have been enjoying a prolonged sabbatical vacation on a South Pacific island without internet access for the past two years, I will try to summarize the story so far, succinctly.

In 1878 two gentlemen, a Mr. Alfred Dent and a Baron Gustavus von Overbeck, entered into an agreement with the Sultan of Sulu, which conferred certain rights (their exact nature is disputed) over land on the north east coast of Borneo, in what is now the Federal Malaysian State of Sabah but which was then part of the sovereign Sultanate of Sulu. The agreement stipulated that any dispute between the parties would be referred to the British Consul General for Borneo.

The agreement provided for an annual payment to the Sultan which, after an agreed revaluation, came to the equivalent of about US$ 1,200 a year. As successor in interest to Messrs Dent and von Overbeck, the State of Malaysia continued to make this payment to the descendants and heirs of the Sultan of Sulu, who were Philippino citizens, until 2013. When an attempt to take over the former Sultanate of Sulu by force was made by a pretender to the title, the payments stopped.

The Sultan’s heirs approached the UK Government with a request to appoint a person to resolve the dispute (there no[...]