All Rise for the Honourable Robot Judge? Using Artificial Intelligence to Regulate AI
There is a rich literature on the challenges that AI poses to the legal order. But to what extent might such systems also offer part of the solution? China, which has among the least developed rules to regulate conduct by AI systems, is at the forefront of using that same technology in the courtroom. […] more…
Reasonable Robots
[ICLQ] It is a curious feature of the history of artificial intelligence (AI) that its successes have often been measured in games. Early programs were taught bounded problems like tic-tac-toe and draughts. These were novelties, but the defeat of chess world champion Gary Kasparov by IBM’s Deep Blue in 1997 was presented as a threat […] more…
Weapons of Mass Disruption: Artificial Intelligence and International Law
[Cambridge International Law Journal] The answers each political community finds to the law reform questions posed artificial intelligence (AI) may differ, but a near-term threat is that AI systems capable of causing harm will not be confined to one jurisdiction — indeed, it may be impossible to link them to a specific jurisdiction at all. […] more…
Herding Schrödinger’s Cats: The Limits of the Social Science Approach to International Law
[Chicago Journal of International Law] The struggle to assert the legitimacy and relevance of international law is integral to its story. Among academics, that tale has seen other lawyers question whether it is “really” law, while scholars of international relations have dismissed it in a bemused footnote. Among politicians, the narrative has been one of […] more…
Artificial Intelligence and the Limits of Legal Personality
[ICLQ] As artificial intelligence (AI) systems become more sophisticated and play a larger role in society, arguments that they should have some form of legal personality gain credence. It has been suggested that this will fill an accountability gap created by the speed, autonomy, and opacity of AI. In addition, a growing body of literature […] more…
Can International Law Survive a Rising China?
[European Journal of International Law] The founding myth of international law is the sovereign equality of its member states. How, then, can and should it accommodate the rise of one potential hegemon and the decline of another? This review essay discusses an important new book by Cai Congyan, of Xiamen University, that tries to reconcile […] more…
Do Better Lawyers Win More Often? Measures of Advocate Quality and Their Impact in Singapore’s Supreme Court
[Asian Journal of Comparative Law] Parties to a dispute that goes to court typically seek to retain the best lawyer they can afford. But do the ‘best’ lawyers get better results? This article surveys the literature across various jurisdictions before introducing a recent study of determinants of litigation outcomes in Singapore. The focus is on […] more…
Through a Glass, Darkly: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Opacity
[American Journal of Comparative Law] As computer programs become more complex, the ability of non-specialists to understand how a given output has been reached diminishes. Opaqueness may also be built into programs to protect proprietary interests. Both types of system are capable of being explained, either through recourse to experts or an order to produce […] more…
“Move Fast and Break Things”: Law, Technology, and the Problem of Speed
[Singapore Academy of Law Journal] Since computers entered into the mainstream in the 1960s, the efficiency with which data could be processed has raised regulatory questions. This is well understood with respect to privacy. Data that was notionally public — divorce proceedings, say — had long been protected through the ‘practical obscurity’ of paper records. […] more…
Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Autonomy
[Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies] Artificial intelligence (AI) systems are routinely said to operate autonomously, exposing gaps in regulatory regimes that assume the centrality of human actors. Yet surprisingly little attention is given to precisely what is meant by “autonomy” and its relationship to those gaps. Driverless vehicles and autonomous weapon systems are the […] more…
R2P and Humanitarian Intervention: From Apology to Utopia and Back Again
[Oxford Handbook of the International Law of Global Security] Next year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Kosovo conflict that was the genesis of the responsibility to protect (‘R2P’). This doctrine was developed precisely as an alternative to humanitarian intervention — the notion that unilateral force can be used to protect human rights in another […] more…
International Law and Its Others
If the rule of law means anything, it is that the law is meant to apply equally to all regardless of the vacillations of power. This is the founding myth of law at the national level — famously forbidding the rich as well as the poor from sleeping under the bridges of Paris at night. […] more…
How “Public” Is Public International Law? Towards a Typology of NGOs and Civil Society Actors
[Global Governance] How “public” is public international law? Despite its natural law origins, international law has long privileged the role of the state. Today, NGOs and civil society actors play an increasingly important role — offering a voice for the disenfranchised through their advocacy, and a helping hand for the disadvantaged through their operations. Calls […] more…
The Fall and Rise of Legal Education in Singapore
[Singapore Journal of Legal Studies] Prior to independence, legal education was all but non-existent in Singapore and many other colonies. This essay briefly discusses that colonial context before going on to describe how the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law came to play an important part in Singapore’s rule of law story as Singapore’s […] more…
International Law in the Asian Century
An academic learns most through errors and omissions. Far better to be criticized in text than footnoted in passing — both, of course, are preferable to being ignored. I am therefore enormously grateful that such esteemed scholars and practitioners were willing to take part in this joint Opinio Juris and EJIL:Talk! symposium and offer their responses […] more…
Opinio Juris and EJIL:Talk! Symposium
A decade after moving from New York to Singapore, I began work on this article in the hope of understanding what seemed to me a paradox. Well into the much-vaunted “Asian century”, the states of this region arguably benefit most from the security and economic dividends of a world ordered by international law and institutions […] more…
Dogs of War or Jackals of Terror? Foreign Fighters and Mercenaries in International Law
[International Community Law Review] The threat of “blowback” from foreign fighters, unaffiliated volunteers who join an insurgency in a distant land, has led states to explore a variety of normative mechanisms. Among these is the international legal regime applicable to mercenaries. This short article considers the evolution of mercenarism and the efforts to regulate it. […] more…
Asia’s Ambivalence About International Law & Institutions: Past, Present, and Futures
[European Journal of International Law] Asian states are the least likely of any regional grouping to be party to most international obligations or to have representation reflecting their number and size in international organizations. This is despite the fact that Asian states have arguably benefited the most from the security and economic dividends provided by […] more…
The Fall and Rise of Legal Education in Asia: Inhibition, Imitation, Innovation
The history of legal education in Asia bears the scars of colonialism. The most obvious evidence of that today lies in the common law/civil law divide between our various countries, a distinction for which the determining factor was typically the legal system of the European power that happened to exercise colonial power. In recent years, […] more…
The Secretary-General We Deserve?
[Global Governance] The Charter of the United Nations frequently maps out a chasm between its aspirations and the means to achieve them. War is to be renounced, human rights are to be advanced, and development to be a priority. Yet peace is beholden to the five permanent members of the Security Council, human rights obligations […] more…
Responsibility to Protect, Responsibility to Whom?
[International Studies Review] In the natural sciences it is customary for theories and concepts to be tested and retested, falsifiability being one of the touchstones of academic rigour. In the social sciences, by contrast, it is common for ideas to simplify and ossify, with acceptance and repetition degrading them into clichés. So it is with […] more…
The International Court of Justice in Asia: Interpreting the Temple of Preah Vihear Case
[Asian Journal of International Law] This article examines the 2013 decision by the International Court of Justice interpreting its 1962 judgment in the Temple of Preah Vihear case between Cambodia and Thailand. The more recent decision is situated in relation to the Court’s evolving role in Asia. Only eight Asian states have accepted the compulsory […] more…
Who Rules the World?
[Oxford Handbook of International Organizations] Have you ever wondered how the leaders of international organizations are chosen? The methods range from quasi-democracy through unilateralism to the random progression of alphabetical order by member state. This essay surveys the different procedures by which international organizations appoint their executive heads — whether designated president, secretary-general, managing director, […] more…
International Criminal Law with Asian Characteristics?
[Columbia Journal of Asian Law] The history of international criminal law has been, for the most part, a European tale. Though it was American insistence that prevented the summary execution of hundreds or thousands of German officers after the Second World War — an approach favoured by Churchill and seriously contemplated by Stalin — the […] more…
After Privacy: The Rise of Facebook, The Fall of WikiLeaks, and Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act 2012
[Singapore Journal of Legal Studies] This article discusses the changing ways in which information is produced, stored, and shared—exemplified by the rise of social-networking sites like Facebook and controversies over the activities of WikiLeaks—and the implications for privacy and data protection. Legal protections of privacy have always been reactive, but the coherence of any legal […] more…
Lawyers, Guns, and Money: The Governance of Business Activities in Conflict Zones
[Chicago Journal of International Law] This paper argues that the norms governing businesses in conflict zones are both understudied and undervalued. Understudied because the focus is generally on human rights of universal application, rather than the narrower regime of international humanitarian law (IHL). Undervalued because IHL may provide a more certain foundation for real norms […] more…
Does ASEAN Exist? The Association of Southeast Asian Nations as an International Legal Person
[Singapore Year Book of International Law] The ASEAN Charter, which entered into force on 15 December 2008, asserts in Article 3 that ASEAN “as an inter-governmental organisation, is hereby conferred legal personality”. This essay examines the legal status of the Association, as well as the political question of whether the whole is greater than (or […] more…
Globalization Rules: Accountability, Power, and the Prospects for Global Administrative Law
[Global Governance] From urban protesters against the World Trade Organization to African nations barred from importing generic HIV drugs, globalization is seen as either capitalism red in tooth and claw or a new and more efficient form of colonialism. But a body of rules is emerging that may both constrain and improve the decisions of […] more…
Are Sanctions Meant to Work?
[Global Governance] Do sanctions work? The jury remains out on this question, but two preliminary issues bear further examination also. What are sanctions intended to achieve? And do states actually want sanctions to work? These essentially political questions depend on two discrete dynamics that are the subject of this article, which focuses on sanctions imposed […] more…
Last Rights: Euthanasia, the Sanctity of Life, and the Law in the Netherlands and the Northern Territory of Australia
[International and Comparative Law Quarterly] This article considers the legal status of end of life decisions at the close of the twentieth century. In particular, I consider the two major arguments against legalising active voluntary euthanasia: the ‘sanctity of life’ argument that intentionally killing an individual as part of his or her medical care is […] more…
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