The Tommy Koh Reader: Favorite Essays and Lectures – Tommy Koh

* World Scientific Publishing, 529 pages, nonfiction

A SMALL black and white sketch on the cover of The Tommy Koh Reader offers a partial view of the author’s face.

Professor Tommy Koh’s collection of speeches and written works is also a partial glimpse into one of Singapore’s most versatile, accomplished and outspoken sons. It would be difficult to give a complete picture of his impact on academia, diplomacy, law, the arts, heritage and the environment in Singapore, but this selection covers a variety of causes that he has championed.

Koh and other members of the University Socialist Club “were very passionate about our quest to build a more democratic, just and equal world,” he wrote. As a student, “he hoped that we would find a socioeconomic model that achieves growth with equity.”

He still expresses similar concerns. In 2010, he noted that Singapore’s founding fathers had a vision of a country like an olive, with a large middle class and relatively few people at the top and bottom, and warned: “We must not allow the olive to become an pear”. .

After graduation, Koh did his law student with former Chief Minister David Marshall and then lectured at the National University of Singapore School of Law. But in 1968 he was asked to represent the newly independent nation as its Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Although he later became Dean of the Faculty of Law (1971-1974), he spent most of his professional life at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

An “active participant” in the republic’s diplomacy for 41 years, Koh proved to be one of its most formidable negotiators. He described his tactics for writing the agenda as Chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Earth Summit in 1991 and 1992: “My strategy was to keep the pressure on the delegates until they agreed to reach an agreement. 4:30 am, the delegates were so exhausted that they asked me to write a pledge. I requested a short recess and, with the help of a dozen colleagues representing the various interest groups, I was able to draft a pledge. my agenda . “

Koh combined his legal and diplomatic skills as president of the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea (1981-1982), which drew up “a constitution for the oceans.” The 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea “has survived the test of time,” he wrote, and “brought legal order, certainty and peace to the world’s oceans and seas. It is often considered one of the most important contributions of the UN. to the rule of law in the world “.

Koh, “the son of a book-loving father and an art-loving mother,” was the founding president of the National Council for the Arts (1991) and in 1992 chaired the Singapore Censorship Review Committee.

“When an attempt was made to stigmatize forum theater and The Necessary Stage,” he wrote to Singapore’s The Straits Times newspaper to defend them. But it failed to “protect performance artist Josef Ng from the wrath of law enforcement.”

That wasn’t the only time Koh criticized government policies. He has been part of the establishment, but he has also been active in civil society.

“Non-governmental organizations by their very nature must be a nuisance,” he told Asiaweek magazine in 1996. “But we need those positive nuisances.”

For example, he cited “Preventing Lower Peirce Reservoir trees from being cut down to make way for a golf course” as one of Singapore’s most important environmental achievements. Although not mentioned in the book, Koh could take credit for it, as he is a sponsor of the Nature Society (Singapore), which spearheaded Singapore’s largest protest campaign in 1992, long before the start of social media.

NSS members first compiled an 80-page report on biodiversity in the catchment and the impact the proposed golf course would have on water quality and the environment. When the government did not respond, they organized a campaign that collected around 17,000 signatures. The proposal was finally shelved.

This collection will resonate with many Malays and Singaporeans, but readers further afield may have to turn to the internet for some cryptic acronyms and references. An index and more footnotes in later editions would be useful.