Abstract:
As a fairly congested international shipping lane, various types of pollution cases
caused by activities of ship are commonly found in the Strait of Malacca. This
growing issue is affected littoral states’ economic and social conditions, especially
for the three countries that have water territory in the Strait, which are Indonesia,
Malaysia and Singapore. Acknowledging this vulnerability, INTERPOL conducted
an operation codename 30 Days at Sea to handle marine environmental crimes
cases. One of the targeted regions is the Malacca Strait. Recognizing that violations
of the MARPOL Convention were the most common cases that encountered during
the operations, the purpose of this study was to analyze the effectiveness of
INTERPOL's role in dealing MARPOL Convention violations in the Strait of
Malacca in 2019-2021. This study uses Neoliberal Institutionalism theory to explain
the nature of INTERPOL as an international organization that underlies cooperation
between law enforcement body in dealing with security issues. This research uses
a qualitative descriptive method by utilizing Lubis and Huseini (1987) analytical
indicators through approach from the source (input), process, and target (output), to
find out how effective the collaboration is. The analysis finds that most of the law
enforcement process held by INTERPOL in the Strait of Malacca is only limited in
doing enforcement patrol, and their operational goal to establish legal cooperation
framework as long-term instrument of enforcement and prevention still has not yet
fulfilled. Nevertheless, their role can still be categorized as effective because as an
international organization, INTERPOL is capable to provide supports to start the
cooperation, assisting the cooperation process, and also set a target for cooperation
so that the participants can get output from cooperation. In conclusion, even though
INTERPOL's performance still left a few indicators unfulfilled, they still succeed
in meeting their responsibility as an international organization in supporting
cooperation between states.