The purpose of this study is to examine which international treaties or agreements should be undertaken and/or developed to resolve the dilemma posed by Indonesia's claim over the uninhabited islands surrounding Timor Sea. Three countries - Indonesia, Timor Leste and Australia - share maritime borderlines in Timor Sea, but they have not come to a final conclusion about their maritime borderlines in Timor Sea. This has affected the status of the uninhabited islands in Timor Sea in particularly Ashmore Reef & Cartier Islands.

The Ashmore Reef & Cartier Islands are situated closed to Roti Island in the Timor Sea. In the case of Ashmore Reef and Cartier Islands (Gugusan Pulau Pasir), The Rotenese (Indonesian) people strongly believe that that they have inalienable rights to Ashmore Reef and Cartier Island, and still refer to Ashmore Reef as their ‘gardens in the ocean'. Named Pulau Pasir, meaning Sand Islands, the reef has been a favored destination of Rotenese fishermen for centuries in their search for marine products to trade on the Asian market to China. In song and story, the reef is referred to as the fishermen's garden or fields, especially The Ashmore Reef, which is home to about 161 graves of the fishermen from Rote in the three coral islets. These sad stories are part of the catalogue of memory and history that embodies a collective attachment to place. In the minds of the Rotenese, and also have Indigenous peoples elsewhere, the presence of their ancestral remains and the fact of their ongoing presence here speaks of an attachment that is also one of ownership. The proximity of the island to their own was also cited as a reason for their sense of ownership (Balint, 2001).

Declaration of the Australia Fishing Zone (AFZ) by 200 nautical miles in 1979, the Rotenese people potentially lost their backyard and right of access to their long traditional fishing grounds. It is also further marked by the expansion of Australia's natural prolongation, Ashmore and Cartier Islands sit right on the rim of Australia's maritime boundary to Indonesia. Inherited from the British in 1931, Australia now marks the outermost limits of Australia's northern maritime territories. By extension, if the maritime borderline is still unsettled, the uninhabited islands of Batek Island, Ndana Island and others remain a potential source of tension or conflict between Indonesia and its neighbors in Timor Sea.

The claims of Indonesia (West Timor) over the uninhabited islands in Timor Sea will be examined from historical, sociological and legal point of view. The determination of land boundary and of equitable maritime boundaries and the natural resources in the Timor Sea between Indonesia and its neighbours is essential for socio-economic development and protection of human rights of present and future inhabitants of the disputed areas (as contained in the UN Convention on Indigenous Rights). The case of Ashmore Reef and Cartier Islands has potentials for regional cooperation concerning such issues as protection of the marine environment, marine parks, fisheries which also needs to be explored.