Researchers' Activities

Dr Tan Hsien-Li taught an executive seminar on “Integration, Rights, and Comprehensive Security in the Indo-Pacific”, Foreign Area Officer Program, Institute for Security and Conflict Studies, George Washington University, Singapore, 13 March 2024.

Dr Tan Hsien-Li presented the draft of her forthcoming chapter “Staying the Course in ASEAN’s Rules-based Order: Realizing the AEC’s ‘Single Market and Production Base’ Amid Global Turbulence” at the “Post-2025 ASEAN Economic Community: Rules-based Ordering”, Centre on Asia and Globalisation, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS, Singapore, 26 February 2024 and 8 December 2023.

Dr Tan Hsien-Li participated in the Direct Interface on ASEAN Economic Community Post-2025 Vision with the ASEAN High Level Task Force on Economic Integration, hosted by the Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for the ASEAN Economic Community, HE Satvinder Singh, in Jakarta on 29 November 2023.

Dr Tan Hsien-Li, Chan Sze-Wei and Yvette Foo of the ASEAN Law and Policy team made a fruitful research trip to Jakarta from 27-28 November 2023 for meetings with the ASEAN Secretariat’s Legal Services and Agreements Directorate and ASEAN Resource Centre, the Singapore Permanent Mission to ASEAN and Indonesian research colleagues in the field of ASEAN.

It was a closed-door engagement session with the EU-ASEAN Business Council, PwC Singapore, Leiden University, and representatives of private sector entities active in ASEAN on 23 November 2023 in Singapore. 

The workshop was organised by the T.M.C Asser Institute, the University of Groningen and in close cooperation with the Centre for the Law of EU External relations (CLEER) on 20 October, Den Haag.

The event opened with a Keynote by ASEAN Secretary-General Dr Kao Kim Hourn, followed by panels on “Forces of Fragmentation”, ASEAN economic integration, regional flashpoints and “ASEAN in the age of multipolarity”.

TRILA Team co-organised the Junior Scholar Workshop at the University of Indonesia, Faculty of Law.

Railla Puno delivered a presentation based on working paper “Rights-based Approaches for Carbon Dioxide Removal: Asia in Focus” at the 7^th edition of the Gonzaga in Florence Human Rights Conference with this year’s theme of Climate Change and Human Rights. The Conference was held in Florence, Italy from 24-25 May 2023 and was hosted by the University of Gonzaga School of Law.

Shen presented her draft chapter on “The Human Rights System of Southeast Asia” for the Oxford Handbook on Comparative Human Rights Law.

Dr Tan Hsien-Li gave the opening lecture of the Conference on the Rule of Law: Issues and Perspectives organised by the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Cambodia on 10 March 2022.

Research Associate Chan Sze-Wei judged the inaugural Malaysia Model ASEAN Meeting (MYMAM).

On Human Rights Day, Thursday 10 December 2020, Dr Tan Hsien-Li and Professor Alison Duxbury (University of Melbourne) discussed their co-authored book ‘Can ASEAN Take Human Rights Seriously’.

Dr Tan Hsien-Li spoke at the “Asian Legislative Experts Symposium (ALES) – Legislations on Infectious Diseases and cooperative measures of Asia countries in the post COVID-19 era”.

Co-Director (Teaching) ASEAN Law and Policy Dr Tan Hsien-Li, Research Associate Chan Sze-Wei and Research Assistant Yvette Foo attended the 35th ASEAN Roundtable ‘The COVID-19 Crisis: Impact on ASEAN and the Way Forward’, an online event organised by the Yusof-Ishak Institute for Southeast Asian Studies ASEAN Studies Centre. The programme included sessions on ASEAN’s management of the pandemic and health emergencies in general, and the economic and geopolitical impact on ASEAN.

Assistant Professor Tan Hsien-Li spoke at an international conference organised by Renmin University’s Human Rights Center on ‘Human Rights Protection under Law-based Pandemic Prevention and Control: The Role of Proportionality Principles’ on 20 June.

Assistant Professor Tan spoke on ‘From SARs to COVID-19: Reflections on ASEAN’s Collective Response to Public Health Crises’. Given that proportionality is a firm legal principle that has substantively different meanings in public law and public international law, and that the COVID-19 pandemic is still propelling different facets of governance, political, public health and legal strategies of containment, she discussed whether proportionality was a good tool with which to examine the ongoing phenomenon. Apart from the fact that proportionality has been rejected as a tool of judicial reasoning by some jurisdictions, socio-cultural contexts on law, politics and governance also differ widely on how proportionality might (or might not) be used.

Assistant Professor Tan Hsien-Li represented the CIL at the webinar—‘The Importance of Regional (Legal) Cooperation during Time of Pandemic Covid-19’—organised by the Faculty of Law, Universitas Indonesia on 11 June. She spoke on ‘ASEAN Cooperation in COVID-19’, shedding light on the quick collective regional action that complemented the ongoing national efforts. The long-term support by ASEAN dialogue partners, particularly China, Korea, Japan, the United States and Canada, in regional emergency relief and public health programmes have helped ASEAN react faster to the pandemic. She concluded by outlining ASEAN members’ longer-term plans of building more robust public health programmes, a regional fund and stockpiles, and strategies on economic recovery.

Research Fellow Arron N Honniball gave a presentation on the progress of and challenges to ASEAN’s regional cooperation in maritime safety and security at the Third ASEAN-India Workshop on Blue Economy, held in Bangkok on 12 September 2019. In his presentation, Dr Honniball focussed on the jurisdictional rights and responsibilities of states concerning maritime safety and security as well as the opportunities and necessity of deeper cooperation to help maintain the blue economy.

CIL researchers participated in the Asian Society of International Law conference in Manila on 21–23 August 2019.

At the Junior Scholars’ Conference, Dita Liliansa presented on ‘Protection of Sea Turtles in the Seas of Southeast Asia: An ASEAN Way?’, offering an ongoing investigation on the relationship between ASEAN law, policy and guidelines, and the development of international instruments in the context of the protection of sea turtles in Southeast Asia. Dr Arron Honniball presented on ‘The Role of Nationality Jurisdiction in Combating IUU Fishing: Recent Developments for the Asian Region’, addressing the evolution of the state of nationality in international fisheries law.

The panel on ASEAN Integration and International Law was filled by the CIL’s ASEAN team and chaired by Professor Damian Chalmers, Co-Director (Research) of CIL’s ASEAN Law and Policy Programme. The panellists presented the papers below.

• Dr Melissa Loja: ‘Regionalisation of Venture Capital Investments and the Compatibility of Regulatory Regimes in Southeast Asia: A Case Study of Fintech regulations in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines’
• Dr Heejin Kim: ‘The Laws and Politics of Data localization in Southeast Asia—Competing Regulatory Goals and Diverging Legal Development
• Loo Jing Xi Gloria: ‘Institutional Design and Models of Asian Capitalism’
• Dr Marija Jovanovic: ‘Trade-Labour Linkage: ‘From Social Clause Deniers to Trump as the Champion of Labour Rights in Free Trade Agreements and Back’

In addition, Professor Antony Anghie, Head of CIL’s Teaching and Researching International Law in Asia, convened a popular workshop on teaching and researching in international law. He also spoke on a book panel by the Oxford University Press and a forum on ‘Junior Scholars’ Guide to the Nuts and Bolts of How to Make It Past Rejection Slips’.

Senior Research Fellow Youna Lyons was invited as a speaker and moderator to the ASEAN Regional Forum Workshop: Implementing UNCLOS and Other International Instruments to Address Emerging Maritime Issues. The workshop included three main themes: traditional security; issues relating to the sustainable management of natural living resources and conservation of the marine environment; and climate change impacts.

Ms Youna Lyons was a moderator on the second theme and presented on the third theme on the topic of international and regional legal and institutional framework applicable to environmental threats in the Asia Pacific, including from climate change and greenhouse gas emissions from shipping. She distinguished legal instruments and regulations applicable to mitigation of greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere and in the ocean from those applicable to adaptation from climate change. She also argued that climate change affects all maritime activities. Finally, the presentation of the regional bodies that form the regional institutional framework highlighted the number of bodies concerned with climate change impact and the need for robust cooperation to ensure adequate mitigation and adaptation. The presentation is available here.

CIL Research Assistant JR Robert Real presented his paper entitled ‘Public Welfare and Human Dignity in the Philippines’ at the ALSA 2018 Conference: Law in the Asian Century. Held from 29 November to 1 December 2018 in Gold Coast, Australia, the conference was organised by the Asian Law and Society Association, the Australian Network for Japanese Law (ANJeL), the Asia Pacific Legal Institute of Australia (APLIA), and Bond University. His paper discusses how the Philippine Supreme Court has been using the concept of human dignity to both justify and limit the exercise of the state’s regulatory power, as well as a tool to discover new rights that advance human dignity.

At the 2018 American Society of International Law (ASIL) research forum, Research Associate Melissa Loja presented her paper ‘Recent Engagement with International Human Rights Norms by Courts in Southeast Asia: New Challenges to Human Rights Theories’.

She discussed that in recent cases involving arbitration and judicial immunity, Singapore courts relied on European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) norms; Malaysia’s Court of Appeal based two decisions on the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD), despite lack of legislative incorporation; the Philippine Supreme Court applied the Convention for the Protection of all Persons from Enforced Disappearances (CPPED), which the government had repeatedly refused to ratify; and Indonesia’s Constitutional Court invoked UN human rights instruments to justify the ex post facto prosecution of the past regime for human rights violations.

This engagement with international human rights norms has three distinctive features: 1) preference for ECHR norms over AHRD norms; 2) subversion of the ethos of human rights; and 3) lack of indication that the courts see themselves as agents of an exogenous regional or global normative order.

These distinctive features cannot be adequately explained by the main universalist, pluralist and institutionalist/neo-institutionalist paradigms about international human rights norms and their application by domestic courts. A re-examination of these paradigms is imperative.

Research Assistant JR Robert Real presented his paper entitled ‘National courts collectively creating regional norms in ASEAN’ at the Philippine Society of International Law Inaugural National Conference. Held from 6 to 7 September 2018 in Quezon City, the Philippines, the conference was organised by the Philippine Society of International Law and the University of the Philippines. Mr Real’s paper explored the role of Southeast Asian judiciaries in developing regional environmental norms amid the lack of a regional court.

Senior Research Fellow Denise Cheong and Research Associates Nur Azha Putra and S Nivedita participated in the workshop on ‘Achieving the ASEAN 2025 Vision for Disaster Management: Lessons from a Worthy Journey’ held on 15 and 16 August 2018. The workshop was jointly hosted by S Rajaratnam School of International Studies and the Pacific Disaster Center, in collaboration with the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management and the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management Centre. Discussions centred around the impact, growth and future direction of ASEAN’s regional architecture for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, and supporting mechanisms.

Research Assistant JR Robert Real presented his paper ‘For the Common Good—The Philippine Supreme Court’s Divergent Approach to Human Dignity’ at the Human Dignity in Asia: Dialogue between Law and Culture Conference. Held from 2 to 3 July 2018 in Taipei, the conference was organised by the Academia Sinica Institutum Iurisprudentiae.

Mr Real’s paper explores the Philippine Supreme Court’s approach to interpreting the concept of human dignity, which seems to vary depending on whether parties invoke individual rights or collective rights.