Tommy Koh

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Template:Chinese name

Tommy Koh Thong Bee
DUNU (First Class)
Born (1937-11-12) 12 November 1937 (age 86)
British Malaya
CitizenshipSingaporean
EducationL.L.B
L.L.M
Diploma in Criminology
Alma materUniversity of Malaya
Harvard University
University of Cambridge
Occupation(s)International lawyer, professor, and a diplomat
Known forFormer ambassador to the United Nations

Tommy Koh (Tommy Thong-Bee Koh or Tommy Koh Thong Bee, simplified Chinese: 许通美; traditional Chinese: 許通美; pinyin: Xǔ Tōng Měi; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Khó Thong-bí) (born: Singapore, 12 November 1937), DUNU (First Class), is an international lawyer, professor, and a diplomat from Singapore. He was also the former ambassador to the United Nations.

Early life and education

Koh was born in Singapore on 12 November 1937. His father was from Tong An, Fujian province and his mother from Shanghai. He graduated from Raffles Institution and received a LL.B. (First Class Honours) degree from the University of Malaya in Singapore (now National University of Singapore). He holds a LL.M. from Harvard University and a post-graduate Diploma in Criminology from Cambridge University. He was conferred a full professorship in 1977. Prof Koh was awarded honorary LL.D. degrees from Yale University and Monash University. He has also received awards from Columbia University, Stanford University, Georgetown University, the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (Tufts), and Curtin University.

Career

He is an international lawyer, professor and Ambassador-at-Large for the Government of Singapore. He presently serves as Special Adviser at the Singapore Institute of Policy Studies, Chairman of the National Heritage Board, Chairman of the Governing Board of the NUS Centre for International Law, and Rector of Tembusu College at the National University of Singapore. He is on secondment from the National University of Singapore Faculty of Law.[1]

He was President of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, 1980–1982. Lax and Sebenius present Koh and his efforts in getting the Convention passed, as an example of successful negotiating.[2] 1990 to 1992 he served as Chairman of the Main Committee of the UN Conference on Environment and Development, where he presided over the negotiations on Agenda 21. He has also served as Singapore's ambassador to the United Nations and the United States.

Koh was the first Executive Director of the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF), established in Singapore in 1997 by the countries of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM).

Professor Koh is currently a special advisor to the Institute of Policy Studies.[3]

On 9 August 2008, Koh was conferred with the Order of Nila Utama (First Class) by the Singapore Government, for his outstanding contributions in the Singapore legislative team representing Singapore, in the Pedra Branca dispute case with the Malaysian government.[4]

He is on the panel of mediators for Singapore International Mediation Centre.

Selected writings

  • Tommy Koh, Five Years After Rio:Some Personal Reflections, UN Chronicle 1997, accessed at [1] 29 August 2006
  • Tommy T.B. Koh and Amitav Acharya (ed.), The Quest for World Order: Perspectives of a Pragmatic Idealist, Times Academic Press, Singapore, 1997 ISBN 981-210-108-X
  • Tommy Koh. The Tommy Koh Reader: Favourite Essays and Lectures. World Scientific, 2013. p. 640. ISBN 978-981-4571-07-4.
  • Tommy Koh, Li Lin Chang and Joanna Koh. 50 Years of Singapore and the United Nations. World Scientific, 2015. p. 384. ISBN 978-981-4713-03-0.

Honours and awards

Lectures

See also

  • Practical idealism
  • Koh, Buck Song (1996), Interview with Professor Tommy Koh in The Arts in Singapore, 1996, Singapore: National Arts Council and Accent Communications.

References

  1. ^ Institute of Policy Studies, Tommy Koh biography.
  2. ^ David A. Lax and James K. Sebenius, "Thinking Coalitionally: Party Arithmetic, Process Opportunism, and Strategic Sequencing,” in H. Peyton Young, ed. Negotiation Analysis. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991), pp. 153–194.
  3. ^ www.spp.nus.edu.sg/ips/Tommy_KOH.aspx
  4. ^ "NDP awards". Straits Times. 8 September 2008.
  5. ^ Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "2009 Autumn Conferment of Decorations on Foreign Nationals," p. 2.
  6. ^ [[Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School and the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard Kennedy School (Cambridge, MA, USA)|Harvard Law School]], "The 2014 Great Negotiator Award Program"

External links

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