evidence: Malaysia claimed their rights over the Spratly Islands when they extended their country’s continental shelf and EEZ to the southernmost parts of the Spratly Islands in an official map published in 1979. The claims are due to geological proximity and specifically the continental shelf provisions of UNCLOS. The emphasis of the claim is that the island features were terra nullius before the actual claim. Malaysia claimed the sovereignty over all of the islands within its continental shelf under the UNCLOS. [...] Malaysia has been effective in controlling the one feature of the Spratly Island since 1983 and two others as well since 1986. Only the Swallow Reef is one of the features under the control of Malaysia that is also considered as an island. The other occupied features are claimed as the ‘low-tide elevations’ but they are beyond the territorial sea of the mainland. In accordance with article 13 of the UNCLOS, these features cannot form the basis for the extension of the territorial sea. Even though the military garrisons reinforced made Malaysia’s control more effective but still it cannot have legitimate permanent occupation in the Spratly features because it is the most recent state to practice the sovereignty over the Spratly groups.