evidence: Singapore Strait,its territory included all the islands within and adjacent to the Strait. At no time was it suggested that its territory was limited, for example, to islands within 3 nm of its mainland coast. None of these islands was considered to be terra ~zullius. [...] 73 See Care cotzcer-fling Sovereignty over Puln~~ Ligitari and P~llau Sipadan (I17do11esidMalaysia)D, ecisioll on Merits, 17December 2002,ICJ Reports 2002, para. 148.98. It follows that in the mid-nineteenth century Pulau Batu Puteh could certainly not be considered as term rzulli~tsand as susceptible to occupation. As the Court noted in its Advisory Opinion with respect to the WesterrzScrlznra,it is "a cardinal condition of a valid 'occupation' that the territory shouldbe terrcr~z~llius- a territory belonging to no-one - at the time of the act alleged to constitute the 'occupation'."74 The established links between the Johor rulers and Pulau Batu Puteh and the fact that Singapore Strait with its islands were the object of territorial regulation in the 1824 Anglo-Dutch Treaty and the 1824 Crawfurd Treaty, exclude the possibility that any of these well-known islands could have been considered as territory which "belonged to no-one in the sense that it was then open to acquisition through the legal process of 'o~cupation'."~~Pulau [...] (a) These and other islands in and around Singapore Strait were part of the Sultanate of Johor before 1824. This was unaffected by the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824, which concerned only islands and territory to the south of the Strait.