Recorded on March 10, 2021.
Building a New Legal Order for the Oceans
About the event:
The U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea was a revolutionary treaty, says Tommy Koh, ambassador-at-large for Singapore and a key participant in the birth of the convention. Over the course of nine years from 1973, post-colonial states joined with the leading powers to draft a new, modern, and equitable legal order for the world’s oceans. Yet disputes over maritime boundaries still produce armed conflict in many parts of the world, raising questions about the convention’s durability. Ambassador Koh will join ocean law expert Robert Beckman for a conversation about why upholding the convention is in the collective and individual interests of all nations.
About the speakers:
Tommy Koh is ambassador-at-large at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs, chairman of the Centre for International Law and rector of Tembusu College at the National University of Singapore, and special adviser of the Institute of Policy Studies. Professor Koh was the president of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea and chaired the Preparatory Committee and the Main Committee at the Earth Summit. He was Singapore’s permanent representative to the United Nations for 13 years, ambassador to the United States for six years, and the United Nations secretary general’s special envoy to Russia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. He was Singapore’s Chief Negotiator in negotiating the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement. He chaired the High-Level Task Force which drafted the ASEAN Charter. He acted as Singapore’s agent in the case concerning Pedra Branca before the ICJ and in the Land Reclamation case before ITLOS. His 21 publications include Building a New Legal Order for the Oceans and Fifty Secrets of Singapore's Success.
Robert Beckman is professor emeritus at the National University of Singapore, where he heads the Centre for International Law’s Ocean Law and Policy Programme. Professor Beckman founded the Centre, a university-wide research institute that is closely affiliated to the Faculty of Law, in 2009 and led it until 2016. For many years, he taught Public International Law, International Legal Process and Introduction to Legal Method, and coached the NUS Jessup Moot team and other NUS international moot teams to frequent victory. He has a global reputation as a scholar of ocean law and is one of the world’s experts on the South China Sea.