Researchers' Activities

On 15 June 2017, CIL Director Professor Lucy Reed spoke at the public seminar programme on ‘Investor-State Mediation: Perspectives from States, Mediators & Practitioners’ sponsored by ICSID and the American University Washington College of Law Center on International Commercial Arbitration. Lucy again presented the results of the CIL Survey, in the broader context of legitimate versus perceived obstacles to State settlement of investor disputes. 

On 12–14 June 2017, CIL Director Professor Lucy Reed and Research Assistant Seraphina Chew attended the inaugural Investor-State Mediator Training at World Bank Headquarters in Washington DC sponsored by the Bank’s International Centre for Investment Disputes (ICSID), the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR), the International Mediation Institute, and the International Energy Charter (ECT). This training initiative reflects the increasing interest in mediation and conciliation of investor-State disputes, either before or while the parties resort to international arbitration. Lucy and Seraphina presented the results of CIL’s survey on obstacles to settlement of investor-State disputes, as part of training the participants to identify the inherent impediments States face in voluntarily settling disputes with investors. Other speakers included Meg Kinnear, Secretary-General of ICSID; Karl Mackie, co-founder of CEDR; Anna-Joubin-Bret, a drafter of the IBA Rules on Rules for Investor-State Mediation; and Alejandro Carballo Leyda, General Counsel of the ECT.

CIL Senior Visiting Research Fellow Dr Lynn Kuok recently participated in the IISS-Shangri-La Dialogue, Asia’s premier defence summit of defence ministers and delegates from over 50 countries, as a Southeast Asian Young Leader. The Dialogue was held in Singapore from 2-4 June 2017. Dr Kuok contributed two opinion editorials on recent developments in the South China Sea to The Straits Times and the Wall Street Journal.

CIL research associates (below) participated in the 14th Asian Law Institute Conference on “A Uniting Force? – ‘Asian Values’ and the Law” on 18–19 May 2017 in Manila, Philippines. The conference was organised by the Asian Law Institute of the National University of Singapore and College of Law at the University of the Philippines. The conference was attended by over 200 legal scholars and practitioners.

CIL Research Associate and Practice Fellow Elsa Sardinha and NUS Faculty of Law Assistant Professor Vincent-Joël Proulx presented a work-in-progress paper entitled ‘Requiem for a Deal, or the End of American Influence in the Investment Chapters of Asia-Relevant FTAs? Can Asian Trade and Investment “Values” Carry the RECP in the Wake of the TPP’s (Potential) Death?’

CIL Research Associate Millicent McCreath presented on ‘Burgeoning Practice of the Establishment of Marine Protected Areas in Southeast Asia to Target the Impacts of International Shipping’.

CIL Research Fellow Dr Zhen Sun presented on ‘ASEAN Framework to Enhance Maritime Security’.

CIL Research Associate Hadyu Ikrami presented on ‘Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines Cooperation in Combating Maritime Crimes: Lessons from the Malacca Straits Patrol and the Role of ASEAN’. 

Professor Lucy Reed, CIL Director, represented the Centre at the 111th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington DC on 12–15 April 2017. Professor Reed was President of the American Society of International Law from 2008 to 2010. With the topical theme of ‘What International Law Values’, highlights of the meeting included: the Grotius Lecture by Harvard University Professor David Armitage entitled ‘Civil War Time: From Grotius to the Global War on Terror’; an interview by New York University Law School Professor Philip Alston of Hudson Medal Winner Professor Georges Abi-Saab; an Assembly address by Professor Philippe Sands on the origins of the ideas of ‘genocide’ and ‘crimes against humanity’ as illustrated in his new book East West Street; and a keynote address by the new General Counsel of the World Bank Group, Ms Sandie Okoro, on gender-based violence entitled ‘Seen and Not Heard’. NUS Law Faculty Dean and CIL Board Deputy Chairman, Professor Simon Chesterman, spoke on the panel on ‘Claims Against the United Nations: From Within and Without’. Ayelet Berman, soon to join CIL as a Senior Research Fellow, spoke on the panel on “The Rise of Multistakeholder Global Governance’. Professor Reed, Dean Chesterman and NUS Professor Tony Anghie attended the Colleague Societies Breakfast as representatives of the Asian Society of International Law. [Photos]

On 22–23 February 2017, CIL Director Lucy Reed participated in several events at Pepperdine University School of Law in California, which is the home of the well-known Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution. Professor Reed was interviewed by Professor Tom Stipanowich, Dean of the Straus Institute, and Ms Maria Chedid, arbitration partner at Baker & McKenzie in San Francisco, in the inaugural international commercial arbitration ‘A Conversation With…’. Professor Reed spoke to Pepperdine/Straus law students and LLM candidates about the practice of international arbitration and, having judged the final Vis Moot rounds in both Vienna and Hong Kong, was warmly welcomed by the Vis team to sit a practice round. Professor Reed also had meetings on arbitration curricula, including with Professor Jack Coe, a leading international arbitration academic and rapporteur for the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration.

On 16 February 2017, CIL’s Christopher Thomas QC was a discussant at the symposium on “International Investment Arbitration Across Asia” organised by the Centre for Asian and Pacific Law at the University of Sydney (CAPLUS) and by the Sydney Centre for International Law (SCIL). The following day, he spoke at the “SCIL International Law Year in Review Conference” on the prospects for and challenges to plurilateral and multilateral treaties in the area of international investment protection.

CIL Research Fellow Dr Zhen Sun participated in a Conference on ‘The Russian Far East, Arctic, and China: Reshaping Northeast Asia in the 21st Century?’ on 25-26 May 2017 in Cambridge, the United Kingdom. The Conference was organised by the Center for Rising Powers and took place at the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge. Dr Sun delivered a presentation on “Navigation Rights under UNCLOS: Application in the Arctic Ocean” under the Panel on UNCLOS. To download her presentation slides, click here.

CIL Senior Research Fellow Youna Lyons participated in the Meeting of the Scientific Group of the London Convention and Protocol on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter as an observer member of the delegation of the Advisory Committee on Protection of the Sea. The meeting was held at the International Maritime Organization in London on 27-31 March 2017.

Professor Robert Beckman (Head of CIL’s Ocean Law and Policy Programme), Dr Hao Duy Phan (CIL Senior Research Fellow) and Dr Lynn Kuok (CIL Senior Visiting Research Fellow) were invited to participate in the workshop on “Understanding Freedoms of Navigation-ASEAN Perspectives” on 7 March 2017 in Singapore. The workshop was organized by the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) under the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Professor Beckman presented an “Overview of the International Navigational Regimes”, and Dr Hao Duy Phan spoke about “Vietnam’s Regulations on Navigational Rights of User States in its Maritime Zones”. To see Professor Beckman’s PowerPoint presentation, click here.