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Profile
Recipient of the National Day 2023 Commendation Award
There are many who serve the country and public generously in numerous and much bigger ways, but I have been very privileged to co-lead the ASEAN Integration Through Law Project, ASEAN Integration Through Law Book Series (Cambridge University Press), and ASEAN Law Academy that promulgate the critical importance of continued globalization, open markets and free trade, and non-use of force and peaceful relations in a rules-based world order – and translates into scholarly, practical, and policy impact. The award is a big surprise and would not have been possible without the support of colleagues from CIL, AGC-IAD, MinLaw, and MFA. It is my good fortune to work alongside you. ~ Tan Hsien-Li
Dr Tan Hsien-Li is the Co-Director (Teaching) for the ASEAN Law and Policy Programme at the Centre for International Law (CIL), NUS. She was until recently Senior Research Fellow and Executive Director of the ASEAN Integration through Law Project at the CIL. Hsien-Li previously held fellowships at the European University Institute, Florence, and the Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law and Justice, NYU School of Law. She was also the AsianSIL Research Fellow at the NUS School of Law and the Ushiba Memorial ASEAN Fellow in Tokyo.
Hsien-Li researches on the role and the rule of law and institutions in ASEAN Integration; public international law, particularly on institution building and norm creation; and human rights and peace and security. Hsien-Li wrote the first book on the ASEAN human rights system (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and have two forthcoming books (co-authored) on ASEAN dispute settlement mechanisms and human rights in ASEAN to be published by Cambridge University Press. She is currently working on two more books—the documentary analysis of ASEAN instruments and a theory of the ASEAN Way. Hsien-Li is an editor of the Asian Journal of International Law and the general co-editor (together with Joseph Weiler) of the ASEAN Integration Through Law Book Series (Cambridge University Press).
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Research Interests
- ASEAN law and policy; governance and institutions; institution-building; integration through law; the practice and impact of international law in Asia
- International human rights law
- Public international law
- Peace and security; post-conflict transition and reconstruction; transitional justice and administration
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Selected Publications
- The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights: Institutionalising Human Rights in Southeast Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
- Promoting Compliance: The Role of Dispute Settlement and Monitoring Mechanisms in ASEAN Instruments (with Bob Beckman, Leo Bernard, Hao Duy Phan, Ranyta Yusran) (Cambridge University Press, February 2016)
- Does ASEAN Take Rights Seriously? (with Alison Duxbury) (Cambridge University Press, expected end 2016)
- “Persistent engagement and insistent persuasion: The Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism’s role in institutionalizing human rights in the ASEAN region”, in Hitoshi Nasu and Ben Saul eds.), Human Rights in the Asia-Pacific Region: Towards Institution Building (Oxford: Routledge, 2011), 127-44.
- “Non-state Actors in Southeast Asia: How does civil society contribute toward norm-building in a state-centric environment?” in Jean d’Aspremont (ed.), Participants in the International Legal System: Multiple Perspectives on Non-State Actors in International Law (Oxford: Routledge, 2011), 109-26.
- “Not just global rhetoric: Japan’s substantive actualization of its human security foreign policy”, Vol. 10(1) International Relations of the Asia-Pacific (2010) 159-187.
