Researchers' Activities

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.

Robert Beckman participated in the UNESCAP Roundtable on 22 August 2019 at the MPA Academy in Singapore, giving a presentation on ‘Tsunami Monitoring from Ships, Offshore Structures and Submarine Cables: Legal And Jurisdictional Issues’.

The Roundtable was organised by UNESCAP, the MPA, the IMO, the SSA and the Global Compact Network Singapore in collaboration with 14 other organisations. The title of Roundtable was Maritime Sector Strategies to Augment Tsunami Monitoring with Economic, Safety and Environmental Benefits. The Roundtable discussed the potential public sector–private sector partnerships to augment tsunami-warning systems by placing warning devices on offshore platforms, ships and submarine cables.

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’.

Research Fellow Arron N Honniball presented a paper at the conference on Governing Science at Sea: The Legal Framework for Marine Scientific Research, held in Busan, South Korea. The conference was organised by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology and the Law of the Sea Institute, UC Berkeley.

Dr Honniball presented his paper titled ‘Rights and Responsibilities for Marine Scientific Research by Private Entities on the High Seas’ in the first panel, which was tasked to explore the context for marine scientific research. The presentation was based on a paper co-authored by Dr Honniball and Associate Professor Robert Beckman.

Research Fellow Amber Rose Maggio participated in the International Conference on Regulatory Governance with the theme ‘Unpacking the Complexity of Regulatory Governance in a Globalising World’ at the Chinese University of Hong Kong on 4–6 July 2019. She presented her paper entitled ‘Climate Change Regulation, Shipping and the WTO: Conflicting Obligations?’ in a panel on challenges relating to transnational environmental regulation.  

At the 24th session of the Rhodes Academy of Oceans Law and Policy, Associate Professor Robert Beckman and Captain Ashley Roach (CIL Visiting Senior Principal Research Fellow) were lecturers, and Research Associate Dita Liliansa was a participant. 

Attended by 52 participants from different countries, the Rhodes Academy addressed the foundations and various topics of the law of the sea. The Rhodes Academy is a cooperative undertaking sponsored by the Center for Oceans Law and Policy (COLP) at the University of Virginia School of Law, CIL at the National University of Singapore, and other institutions.

On 17 and 18 June 2019, CIL Researchers Youna Lyons and Vanessa Lam participated in the Working Group on Marine Litter of the Coordinating Body on the Seas of East Asia (COBSEA) as observers and contributing experts. Ms Lyons also gave a presentation outlining the scope and findings of NUS research on the ‘Status of Research on Marine Plastics in Southeast Asia: Who Does What?’

Research Fellows Amber Rose Maggio and Dafina Atanasova participated in the 16th ASLI (Asian Law Institute) conference on ‘The Rule of Law and the Role of Law in Asia’. Dr Maggio gave a presentation on ‘Regional Cooperation for the Protection of the Marine Environment in Southeast Asia: Can Other Regions Provide Inspiration?’ She presented CIL’s work on this topic and some ideas about best practices and shared experiences.

Dr Atanasova presented her paper titled ‘Investment Treaties Viewed from Inside the Lion City’. The paper is part of the broader research project on ‘Investment Treaties and National Governance’ (headed by CIL Research Associate Professor Jansen Calamita), studying the extent to which the administrations of Asian states take investment treaties into account in their decision-making processes. Based on a series of interviews with government officials in Singapore and documentary research, the paper opens the ‘black box’ of the Lion City and looks at the impact of investment treaties on its governance. A unitary compact state, Singapore is considered to work as a well-oiled machine and provides a very fruitful terrain for testing some of the core tenets of arguments on investment treaties’ impacts on governance.

Research fellow Arron N Honniball was invited to sit on the Committee of Appointed Judges for the inaugural Netherlands Institute for the Law of the Sea (NILOS) Moot Court Competition, which was organised by Utrecht University. This competition is the first moot court that simulates proceedings under Part XV of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. Judges graded the memorials submitted by the teams, which pleaded the Case Concerning Certain Activities in the DeGroot Sea before ITLOS. The final rounds of the competition took place on 22–24 May 2019.

CIL was an Associate Sponsor of the 43rd Annual Conference of the Center for Oceans Law & Policy (COLP) of the University of Virginia, which was held at World Maritime University in Malmo, Sweden, from 15 to 16 May 2019. The title of the conference was Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction: Intractable Challenges and Potential Solutions.

CIL sponsored the participation of four people at the conference. Ms Rena Lee, the President of the UN Intergovernmental Conference on BBNJ, was the keynote speaker. Associate Professor Robert Beckman served as a moderator in one of the sessions, and two of CIL’s external consultants, Captain J Ashley Roach and Professor Nilufer Oral, gave presentations. The Conference Programme and PowerPoint presentations are available on the COLP website.

Dr Tara Davenport participated in the Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) held in Washington DC from 27 to 29 March 2019. On a panel titled ‘Deep Seabed Mining in Crowded Oceans’, she engaged in a discussion on the various challenges facing deep seabed mining 25 years after the International Seabed Authority was established.

CIL Ocean Law and Policy Programme Head, Robert Beckman, participated in a Submarine Cables Meeting in Colombo, Sri Lanka from 25 to 26 March 2019. The meeting was organised by the UNODC Global Maritime Crime Programme and the government of Sri Lanka. Associate Professor Beckman presented on causes of submarine cable faults and chaired a session on the legal issues that must be addressed to protect submarine cables.

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.

Research Fellow Amber Maggio participated in the UNODC Contact Group on the Sulu and Celebes Seas: Mapping and Responding to Global Maritime Crime, which was held in Manila, Philippines.

The meeting focussed on the recommendations from the previous contact group meeting in August 2018 and their implementation, particularly challenges, responses and the need for information sharing. In addition, the shipping industry and humanitarian organisations shared their perspectives on working with victims of maritime crimes and their families.

Dr Maggio participated in the operations working group, where the possibility of a maritime law enforcement cooperation (or agreement) was discussed.

Research Associate Dita Liliansa was invited to speak at the 6th Global Fisheries Enforcement Training Workshop on 18–22 February 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand. The workshop gathered about 135 experts and monitoring, control and surveillance practitioners from around 37 countries, to discuss best practices as well as innovative tools and technologies to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Ms Dita Liliansa delivered a presentation on ‘Implementation of Port State Measures Agreement in Southeast Asia’. The presentation offered a comparison of the regional bodies dealing with the implementation of the Port State Measures Agreement in Southeast Asia and discussed possible cooperation forward. The presentation slides can be downloaded here.

Senior Research Fellow Youna Lyons was invited as a keynote speaker to the International Conference on Plastics in the Marine Environment (ICPME) 2018, hosted by the National University of Singapore on 5–7 December 2018. The programme of the conference provided a comprehensive discussion of issues related to the introduction of plastic in the marine environment from the perspectives of plastic chemists and biochemists, marine ecologists, oceanographers, human health, pollution monitoring, and research on marine ecological and socio-economic impacts. It also included a discussion of the international legal framework and possible paths to tackle the issue, including the development of a circular economy and other solutions for the future.

Ms Lyons presented the status and prospects of the international legal framework to manage marine plastics in Southeast Asia. The presentation identified the possible angles of an ocean law and policy approach to the issue of marine plastic pollution and provided an overview of the international legal framework. It emphasised relevant provisions from the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which can be used to frame scientific research on marine plastic in order to inform the content of states’ obligation to protect and preserve the marine environment in this context. Ongoing working groups in different international and regional bodies and their respective importance were also highlighted. The presentation slides can be downloaded here.

CIL sponsored a panel on ’Legal and Institutional Mechanisms to Manage the Marine Environment in the Seas of Southeast Asia: Status and Way Forward’ at the Sixth East Asian Seas Congress (EAS Congress) in Iloilo, Philippines on 27 November 2018. The theme of the EAS Congress this year was ‘25 Years of Partnerships for Healthy Oceans, People and Economies: Moving as One with the Global Ocean Agenda’. The event is co-organised every three years by the Partnerships in Environmental Management for the Seas of East Asia (PEMSEA) and includes a Ministerial Forum on the last day of the meeting.

This CIL-sponsored session aimed to investigate and discuss the extent to which regional institutions can and may foster a common understanding of applicable international law and facilitate implementation. An underlying question in this investigation was to assess the possibility of following an ASEAN way and bypassing the need for a regional, binding and overarching agreement for the protection of the marine environment.

The CIL panel session comprised presentations by CIL researchers—Amber Rose Maggio, Dita Liliansa and Youna Lyons—followed by comments by Raphael Lotilla, former Director of PEMSEA and Somboon Siriraksophon, SEAFEC Project Director. The three speakers focussed on the following topics:

• principles and rules of international marine law applicable to the seas of Southeast Asia;
• regional institutions and the protection of the marine environment in Southeast Asia; and
• application of international marine law to the seas of Southeast Asia, with the examples of sensitive marine areas, the IOSEA Marine Turtle Memorandum of Understanding and Fisheries Refugia.

The speakers brought together the overarching international legal framework, comparisons of regional cooperative mechanisms and specific examples of application of the international legal framework by regional bodies. Click here for the session’s highlights.

This comparison of regional institutions and coordination mechanisms is part of an ongoing study of regional cooperation mechanisms for the protection of the marine environment in Southeast Asia. It will be updated as CIL’s research progresses. Click on the links below for more information on the panel. 

• Table of international environmental law treaties applicable to the protection of the marine environment in Southeast Asia 
• Diagram of regional bodies involved in the protection of the marine environment in Southeast Asia 
• Map of sensitive marine areas in Southeast Asia under international law
• Session brochure

Head of Ocean Law and Policy Robert Beckman and Research Associate Millicent McCreath participated in the NUS-Sweden Arctic Roundtable on 21 November 2018 at the National University of Singapore (NUS). The Roundtable was organised by the Embassy of Sweden and the NUS Energy Studies Institute. Speakers included the Swedish Ambassador for Arctic Affairs, the Director-General of the Swedish Polar Institute and the Swedish Ambassador to Singapore. Representatives from several NUS research institutes outlined their research activities on the Arctic.

Associate Professor Beckman gave a brief presentation on CIL’s research on the Arctic, including the recently revised CIL Arctic Guide prepared by Captain J Ashley Roach.

Youna Lyons and Dita Liliansa participated in the Indonesian Centre for the Law of the Sea (ICLOS)  Conference on Artificial Islands Beyond National Jurisdiction. The conference was organised by Universitas Padjadjaran in Bandung, Indonesia.

Ms Lyons was invited as a speaker and gave a presentation on ‘Artificial Islands, Installations and Related Activities by Non-State Actors in Area Beyond National Jurisdiction’.

Ocean Law and Policy Programme Head Robert Beckman participated in the 10th South China Sea International Conference organised by the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam. The conference was held from 7 to 9 November 2018 in Da Nang, Vietnam. The 10th conference in this series was attended by more than 200 participants from Vietnam, the region and many countries. A/P Beckman chaired one session, gave a presentation in another session, and was a panellist in the final wrap-up session. His presentation was entitled ‘Noncompliance and Integrity of Maritime Legal of the Maritime Legal Order’. Click on the links for the abstract and PowerPoint slides.

Dr Tara Davenport participated in the Second Workshop on ‘Developing Options for the Implementation of the Due Regard and Reasonable Regard Obligations under UNCLOS’ held in Bangkok, Thailand on 29–30 October 2018. The workshop was the second one organised by the International Seabed Authority (ISA) and the International Cable Protection Committee (ICPC) to address the coexistence of submarine cables and deep seabed mining in areas beyond national jurisdiction. The workshop brought together representatives from the ISA, the ICPC, the cable industry, the mining industry, academia, and government representatives to discuss practical solutions to minimise interference with these two important uses of the oceans. Dr Davenport served as facilitator for the round-table discussions between the cable industry and deep seabed mining industry.

Senior Research Fellow Youna Lyons attended the 73rd meeting of the Marine Environment Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO). The meeting took place from 22 to 26 October 2018. Ms Lyons was head of delegation of the Advisory Committee for the Protection Sea, an NGO with a consultative status at the IMO. In addition to most plenary meetings, she took part in three working groups on marine plastics, underwater noise and biofouling.

Ocean Law and Policy Programme Head Robert Beckman participated in a Law of the Sea Workshop in Kuala Lumpur on 18 October 2018. Organised by the Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA) and the Japanese Embassy in Malaysia, the workshop was on a rules-based order for the oceans and issues pertaining to activities in the South China Sea. Associate Professor Beckman gave a presentation on ‘UNCLOS as a Rules-Based Order for the Oceans’.

CIL researchers presented papers at the conference ‘International Law in Asia: Challenges and Opportunities’ in Beijing. The conference was organised by the Asian Society of International Law and Renmin University of China Law School

Research Fellow Amber Rose Maggio presented a paper entitled ‘Regional Cooperation for Protection of the Marine Environment in Southeast Asia’. The paper focussed on cooperation in the South China Sea and explored current trends in regional cooperation in Southeast Asia, including the challenges faced and future prospects in the region. Dr Maggio highlighted particularities of the region with regard to cooperative efforts, in order to understand the best way to approach the analysis.

Research Associate Millicent McCreath presented a paper entitled ‘UNCLOS Legal Framework for Cooperation in East and Southeast Asia on the Reduction of Marine Plastic Pollution from Land-Based Sources’. In her paper, Ms McCreath sought to clarify the content of the UNCLOS obligations on land-source pollution and regional cooperation, to encourage states to take active measures to prevent marine plastic pollution, and to work together to that end. The paper also addressed the legal implications of failing to meet these obligations, particularly the risk of compulsory dispute settlement procedures under UNCLOS.

At The Legal Regime of Underwater Cultural Heritage and Marine Scientific Research Conference in Bodrum, Turkey, Research Fellow Sun Zhen presented a paper titled ‘Protecting Underwater Cultural Heritage in the EEZ and on the CS—Could the Marine Scientific Research Regime Play a Role?’ The conference was organised by the Research Center of the Sea and Maritime Law, DEHUKAM, Ankara University, and co-organised by the Center for Oceans Law and Policy (COLP), University of Virginia. Click here for the abstract.