Researchers' Activities

Postdoctoral Fellow Neha Mishra presented her paper titled ‘International Trade Law and Data Ethics: Possibilities and Challenges’ at the 6th Biennial Asian Economic Law Network Conference. The conference was held in Taipei on 25–27 October and was organised by National Tsing-Hua University; Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan; Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, National Tsing Hua University; and The Erasmus+ Program of the European Union.

Ms Mishra argued that the inherent tension between promoting data/digital innovation and ensuring ethical data management is likely to surface in international trade law, and is particularly prominent when data restrictive measures are examined under exceptions in international trade agreements. This tension appears irresolvable due to the technological uncertainty surrounding the future evolution and uses of AI and Big Data and the absence of international norms on data governance. Although international trade law cannot directly resolve these tensions, trade policymakers should remain open and responsive to relevant policy dialogues on data governance in various governmental and multistakeholder fora. Ms Mishra argued that by doing so, international trade law can play a more proactive and transformative role in dealing with ethical issues in data governance—addressing not only infrastructure-related issues (eg, access to telecommunications networks) but also regulatory concerns such as facilitating international cooperation on data policies, supporting internationally recognised internet standards, promoting fair competition and transparency in domestic data policies, and ensuring digital inclusion of developing countries. Trade rules should also not require countries to compromise on their data policies necessary for ethical reasons so as to participate in global digital markets. Although these outcomes appear ambitious, the ongoing dialogues at WTO on electronic commerce provide an opportunity to generate political goodwill and enhance cooperation among countries to achieve these results.

Senior research fellows Youna Lyons and Vu Hai Dang presented at the 4th Fisheries Management and Management Environmental Protection Workshop organised by the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and the National Fisheries Research and Development Institute in Manila, Philippines, on 24 October 2019. The meeting discussed the establishment of a network of marine protected areas in the SCS.

At the workshop, Ms Lyons presented a mapping exercise of all marine protected areas and ecologically sensitive areas that have been established by coastal countries in the SCS, based on applicable international instruments and publicly available data from WDPA. Dr Dang presented options to support the development of a network of marine protected areas in the South China Sea.

CIL Researcher Eugenio Gomez-Chico participated in the Conference ‘REDIAL: Repensar la Enseñanza del Derecho Internacional en América Latina’ (Rethinking international legal education in Latin America), which took place in Bogota, Colombia on 23–24 October. He presented CIL’s TRILA programme (Teaching and Researching International Law in Asia), sharing its activities, goals and achievements.

REDIAL, like TRILA, is a project aimed to improve and strengthen the scholarship and community of international law scholars regionally, introducing Latin American perspectives and materials into the curriculum, and critically analysing the traditional Euro-centric contents and history of the discipline. In this second conference, scholars from different universities in the region discussed their challenges in teaching and researching on international law, and publishing in different languages.

Senior Research Fellow Denise Cheong participated in a faculty professional development course on nuclear security education held at the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore. This course was jointly organised by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. The aim of the week-long course was to build capacity in the design of nuclear security education programmes, including curriculum development, and to support human resource development in Asia. Participants were predominantly academics from a variety of disciplines including natural and applied sciences, social sciences and humanities, representing leading universities from countries within Southeast Asia as well as China, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Robert Beckman participated in the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) Legal Expert Meeting on the Review of the Maritime Crime Manual for Criminal Justice Practitioners. The meeting was held in Mauritius on 16–18 October 2019. Assoc Prof Beckman led a discussion on the protection of submarine cables and participated in the discussions on stateless vessels, shiprider agreements and transnational maritime environmental crime.

Senior Research Fellow Denise Cheong and Research Associate Nivedita S participated in the Fourth International Workshop on the Indemnification of Damage in the Event of a Nuclear Accident on 8–10 October 2019, held in Lisbon, Portugal. Organised by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (OECD/NEA), the Institute Superior Técnico (IST), and the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon, the workshop brought together more than 140 participants from 29 countries, including representatives from government agencies, operators, suppliers, nuclear insurance pools and mutuals, law firms and academia.

The workshop facilitated in-depth, interdisciplinary discussions on the scope of ‘nuclear damage’ as defined in the international nuclear third party liability instruments as well as the mechanics of the transboundary claims-handling process, which the conventions do not address. A key outcome of the workshop was the recognition that a common understanding of these issues is needed to effectively and efficiently operationalise the international nuclear conventions in the event of a transboundary nuclear accident. Important links between emergency preparedness and response and nuclear liability were also drawn.

On 7 October 2019 Robert Beckman participated in the Arctic Frontiers symposium organised by Arctic Frontiers in collaboration with the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Singapore, the National University of Singapore and Innovation Norway.

In a panel discussion on Resources of the North, Prof Beckman argued that since the Arctic is an ocean, the right to explore and exploit the natural resources in the Arctic Ocean is governed by the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

The CIL Ocean Law and Policy Programme organised an informal roundtable discussion on the ‘Governance of and Research on Pollution from Marine Plastic in Southeast Asia’ on 25 September 2019 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Participants to the roundtable include representatives from Indonesia’s relevant government agencies, research institutions and academia from Indonesia, and representatives from permanent missions of ASEAN countries to ASEAN. CIL was represented by Youna Lyons, Dita Liliansa, Vanessa Lam and Vu Hai Dang. Participants shared their research on pollution from marine plastic. For more information on the event, click here.

On 23–25 September 2019 four researchers from the CIL Ocean Law and Policy Programme—Youna Lyons, Dita Liliansa, Vanessa Lam, and Vu Hai Dang—visited several divisions of the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta. The aims of the visits were to share CIL’s research on the protection of the marine environment and, if possible, involve the Secretariat in a manuscript under development.

Inputs from the Secretariat helped to ensure CIL’s accurate interpretation of ASEAN instruments and processes on the protection and management of the marine environment.

On 19–20 September 2019, the CIL hosted representatives of ten Asia-Pacific economies in Singapore for a workshop on the management of the reform of investment treaty portfolios. The workshop was convened by Research Associate Professor (CIL) N Jansen Calamita (Head, Investment Law and Policy) and attended by CIL researchers Dr Romesh Weeramantry (Head, International Dispute Resolution) and Dr Charalampos Giannakopoulos (Post-doctoral Fellow).

Participants discussed a broad range of issues, including the challenges of successfully updating and managing a country’s investment treaty portfolio, approaches to treaty drafting, options for reform of the ISDS regime, managing the coexistence of ‘reformed’ and ‘unreformed’ treaties in state treaty portfolios, and developing and implementing effective procedures for dispute avoidance and prevention.

The workshop is part of CIL’s broader research focus on international investment law and policy and international dispute resolution.

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.

At the ReCAAP Capacity-Building Executive Programme held in Singapore from 8 to 13 September, Robert Beckman gave a presentation on the relevance of UN terrorism conventions to attacks on ships in the region.

The programme was jointly organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore, together with the ReCAAP Information Sharing Centre. 

Associate Director Sharon Seah and Research Associate Amiel Ian Valdez participated in the Asia-Pacific Climate Week (APCW) from 2nd to 6th September in Bangkok. The APCW was organised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), in partnership with global and regional organisations. The meeting’s goals are to discuss recommendations to boost regional climate action in the lead-up to the United Nations Secretary-General’s Climate Action Summit scheduled for 23 September 2019, and to give impetus to the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP) 25 negotiations in Santiago, Chile, in December 2019.

At the APCW, regional stakeholders discussed climate emergency, key vulnerabilities and challenges, and increasing ambition in achieving the Paris Agreement’s goal. They also shared best practices on implementing national climate plans. CIL staff participated in small group workshops and discussions on climate resilience and adaptation, nature-based solutions, transparency arrangements, climate finance, and local actions.

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 Associate Eugenio Gomez-Chico participated in the Critical Approaches to International Law Symposium, organised by Griffith College in Dublin from 1 to 4 August.

In his paper ‘Human Rights Courts of the Global South as creators of International Law’, Mr Gomez-Chico explored how the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and the African Court of Human and Peoples’ Rights approach international law: neither embracing it completely nor fully rejecting it, but rather adapting to international legal principles for their purposes, thus ‘indigenising the universal’.

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.

For the second consecutive year, CIL was represented in the pool of arbitrators of the Vietnam National Rounds of the FDI International Moot. Research Associate Eugenio Gomez-Chico and Research Consultant Emily Choo sat as arbitrators for various rounds, including the quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final match of the event. This year, team Rigaux from Hanoi Law University won against 14 other teams, advancing to the regional rounds in Seoul, South Korea.

In addition to participating as arbitrators, Ms Choo delivered a lecture on ‘The Impact of Amicus Curiae Interventions in Investor-State Disputes’, and Mr Gomez-Chico spoke on ‘How to Prepare and Win an FDI Moot Competition’ in the workshop.

As part of the outreach efforts of the CIL’s TRILA (Teaching and Researching International Law in Asia) programme led by Professor Tony Anghie, Research Associate Eugenio Gomez-Chico met scholars in Hanoi to discuss possibilities of collaboration: Dr Toan Thang Nguyen, Head of the Comparative Law Department at Hanoi Law University; Dr Nguyen Thi Hong Yen, Head of the Public International Law Division at Hanoi Law University; Dr Hai Yen Trinh, Vice Dean of International Law at the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam; and Mr Nguyen Huu Phu, Head of International Law and Treaties at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, and representative of the Vietnam Society of International Law.

The attendees discussed the importance of teaching and researching international law in their respective universities, the challenges faced by scholars in Vietnam, and their materials and techniques for teaching international law courses. Mr Gomez-Chico shared with them the progress of the TRILA programme, and invited their inputs on what would be most useful for local scholars regarding future CIL TRILA workshops in Vietnam.

Professor Antony Anghie (Head of International Law Teaching) and Research Associate Eugenio Gomez-Chico visited the Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia (PUC) on 29 May, as part of the outreach efforts of CIL’s Teaching and Researching International Law in Asia (TRILA) Programme. The visit was arranged by Mr Thol Theany, lecturer of international law at PUC, who participated in the TRILA Conference in 2018. Mr Thol and his colleague, Mr Phan Daro, shared with the CIL delegation their experience as teachers and researchers in Cambodian academia, in particular at PUC.

The CIL delegation met the university students from the master’s programme in international law and human rights and the bachelor’s programmes in law and international relations. The group engaged in a lively conversation on the students’ interest in international law and insights into the main international legal challenges facing Cambodia. The students overwhelmingly pointed to human rights as the area most relevant to their work, as many of them work in NGOs and government positions related to the topic.

Then Professor Anghie gave a lecture on the historical background of the current international legal order, emphasising the origins of human rights law and Asia’s role in the development of international law.

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.