Tommy Koh

The following sections are included:

• Preface
• Contents
• Foreword by Wang Gungwu

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Singapore’s Foreign Policy
• International Relations and Diplomacy in the 21st Century
• Tommy Koh’s Diplomatic Wisdom

For several years, I have worked with Ambassador-at-Large Professor Tommy Koh at close quarters in a number of forums to project and protect Singapore’s national interests, and he never fails to amaze me each time I see him in action. His skills and diplomatic prowess are well known. He speaks clearly and concisely, with an appropriate dose of humour and objectivity. His devotion to making “three points”, on the direction of his beloved wife, is a KPI (key performance indicator) that I try to achieve, much to the delight of my own wife who thinks I am too long-winded at times…

Prime Minister Goh is right in suggesting that Singapore needs to produce more globally successful diplomats like Tommy Koh. The goal of this essay, therefore, is a simple one: to spell out the qualities that led to Tommy Koh's extraordinary diplomatic success. I would like to suggest that Tommy Koh has seven pillars of diplomatic wisdom. Future Singaporean diplomats could try to replicate these seven pillars to achieve similar success.…

On the morning of November 17, 2000, I opened The Straits Times to a huge headline “US, S’pore Eye Free Trade Pact”, announcing that the US-Singapore Free Trade Agreement had been launched. Barely two minutes later, my then boss, the late S Tiwari, called and asked if I had seen it. Before waiting for my answer, he told me to hurry to the office. I gulped my breakfast down and rushed in.

Thus began a frantic and intense two-and-a-half-year journey as a member of the US-Singapore FTA team, whose Chief Negotiator was Ambassador Tommy Koh and whose leadership of that negotiation would shape and influence my professional life in many ways…

By the time Tommy Koh arrived in Washington D.C., his reputation had already preceded him. He had spent 13 years as Singapore’s Permanent Representative at the United Nations (UN) in two stints spanning three and 10 years, respectively. He had chaired and concluded the United Nations Law of the Sea negotiations, UNCLOS, a marathon that lasted 10 years but nonetheless left behind a document which to this day is quoted frequently and by which small and medium countries protect their interests, waters and territories. He was also at the UN when Vietnam invaded Cambodia on December 25, 1978 and completed its takeover in January 1979. ASEAN took the Cambodian issue to the UN and Tommy Koh and the Singapore team played an active role working with the other ASEAN members to put pressure on Vietnam through the UN, to withdraw its troops and presence from Cambodia, and agree to a comprehensive political settlement, which included UN-supervised elections.

The following sections are included:

• Facilitating the Upgrade of Singapore-China Relations
• Keeping Bilateral Differences in Perspective
• Bringing China-ASEAN Relations Back to a Positive Footing
• Reaffirming the Principle of Singapore’s Ties with the Major Powers
• Conclusion

Professor Tommy Koh has a deep appreciation of Japan. He has an optimistic view of Japan because he sees Japan’s many strengths, which are often under-estimated. He believes that the people of Japan and the values that they embody such as resilience in the face of adversity; the quality of the Japanese workforce; their work ethic and culture of excellence; their pursuit of excellence in science, technology and innovation; and their soft power, will stand them in good stead in the international arena…

Through an illustrious diplomatic career littered with many achievements, Professor Tommy Koh has been involved in several initiatives that have helped transform the Asian region for the better. One area where his contribution was profound, but perhaps understated, was in supporting initiatives such as the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), now the leading Asian-Pacific regional forum that has helped expand regional cooperation, trade and investment. Koh also played key roles in the establishment and development of associated institutions such the Pacific Business Forum (PBF), which eventually became the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC). In so doing, Koh not only helped Singapore expand its connectivity and “soft power” but he also contributed greatly to creating a more vibrant and peaceful region.

Ambassador Tommy Koh spent almost 20 years in the United States and is well known as Singapore’s former ambassador to the United Nations in New York (1968–1971; 1974–1984) and then as our ambassador to the United States from 1984–1990.

He served with distinction and helped put Singapore on the world map during his time at the UN. His skills as a diplomat and negotiator had seen him being thrust in the forefront of several UN Conferences, and he performed his tasks as chair of these meetings with flying colours. He was President of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea from 1980 to 1982, which resulted in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), an international agreement that was successfully concluded in 1982 after almost 10 years of negotiation. UNCLOS came into force in 1994 and since then 167 countries and the European Union (EU) have acceded to this agreement. Ambassador Tommy Koh also chaired the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in 1992, also known as the Rio Summit, a 10-day meeting that resulted in several important political declarations and legally binding agreements.

Tommy Koh once called the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process a “journey of rediscovery”. In his typical succinct manner he described ASEM as a house with four pillars of engagement between the political leaders, government officials, business communities and the civil societies of the two regions. The task of connecting the fourth pillar — civil societies — was the mission given to the Asia-Europe Foundation, or ASEF.

ASEF might well not have taken off 20 years ago, if not for Ambassador Koh’s legendary diplomatic skills. Through a blitz of multilateral and bilateral consultations and negotiations among ASEM partners, he succeeded in drafting the so-called Dublin Principles in Ireland, to pave the way for the establishment of ASEF. Named after the city where it was adopted, the document spells out the new organisation’s mandate and the key principles upon which it would operate.

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Different Tracks, Different Characters
• Tommy Koh in Track 2: Expertise and Personality
• The Environment
• ASEAN
• Major Powers
• Conclusion

How does Professor Tommy Koh get to do all that he does — not only in his illustrious service as a Singaporean diplomat, but also in wider public life, especially as a tireless champion of the arts and heritage? A day in the life of Tommy Koh, which appears to last more than 24 hours, may go like this: a swim with Mrs Koh before sunrise, a breakfast meeting, the official opening of a public event (with him speaking as a most congenial guest of honour), back-to-back meetings throughout the day (all involving complicated issues and requiring his legendary negotiation skills), an evening exhibition opening or a community event (again with him as guest of honour), dinner at a state function (where he strengthens the ties between international leaders) and, when he finally gets home, hours of reading, as well as writing his articles and speeches, which share, among other things, his vision of a more humane Asia. In recent years, too, the rare “free” evening may be blessed with spending time with his grandchildren, who do not always receive top priority if Prof. Koh were invited to grace yet another official event; this is because he would not bring himself to turn it down even when he could cite family life or the need for more rest as perfectly acceptable reasons. What Tommy does in a day may well be what very busy persons in professional and public life do in an entire week. In the process, and with his characteristic generous spirit and amiable personality, he touches the lives of many in Singapore and beyond…

Tommy Koh’s leadership of the arts in Singapore from 1991 to 1996 was characterised by three elements: a pioneering spirit, a progressive outlook and most importantly perhaps, an ability to rally people together.

The following sections are included:

• Fundamental Shifts in Media and Arts Censorship
• The 1991–1992 Censorship Review Committee
• Trying to Define Artistic Merit
• A Quest for Consensus, That Carries on Today

The following sections are included:

• A Prodigious Reader
• Professor Koh’s Book Club
• A Thoughtful Gesture
• Keep Listening, Keep Reading

The following sections are included:

• My First Encounter with Tommy
• Raising the Arts in the Eyes of Policymakers
• A Staunch Supporter of Artists
• His Long Service to Singapore

The following sections are included:

• Opening the Doors to Singapore’s “New” Museums Age
• Reaching out to ASEAN

Professor Tommy Koh must have thought through the order of the words in the title of his 2013 article, “The Artist, the State and the Market”, which was originally published in The Straits Times. The artist came first, as is with most of the other articles anthologised in the Art, Culture and Heritage section of The Tommy Koh Reader: Favourite Essays and Lectures (2013) — all have the artist as the central focus…

The following sections are included:

• First Encounter
• The National Museum
• Cultural Diplomacy

Being well trained by Tommy, I will make three points:

• First: Tommy, the Best Chairman of the National Heritage Board
• Second: Tommy, the Cultural Diplomat
• Third: Tommy, the Heritage Champion
• In Conclusion: Thank You, Tommy!

The following sections are included:

• A Tireless Champion of Literature
• Tommy Koh and NLB’s Read! Singapore
• Guiding NLB on the World Stage
• The Singapore Story in Print
• More Than a Man of Letters

The following sections are included:

• Beginnings of a Delightful Food Journey
• Taking the Show on the Road
• Ever the Congenial Diplomat
• Spurring Our Culinary Heritage

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• A Life-Long Commitment to Nation-Building
• Progress Through Knowledge-Creation and Questioning Conventional Wisdom
• Debunking the Co-Optation Theory
• Servant Leader, Team Leader, a Leader of Leaders
• Conclusion

Power, as my former boss in the Singapore civil service used to tell his staff, is the combination of positional power and knowledge power. Each time he mentions this dictum, I would be reminded of Tommy Koh. Not because Tommy possesses both in abundance, but because of the way in which Tommy has been able to wield moral authority and influence in spite of the fact that he has not always possessed a great deal of positional power. While Tommy has held important positions in public service, his ability to influence the views of decision-makers did not rely on those positions…

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• Environmental Advocacy
• Enter Professor Tommy Koh as Patron
• Battle to Save Lower Peirce Forest
• Conclusion

The following sections are included:

• Tommy Koh, a Force for Good across Different Sectors
• Guardian Angel to NSS
• Nature Conservationist, Extraordinaire

There are those who are made by institutions and there are those who make the institutions. Professor Tommy Koh belongs to the latter tribe. One of the institutions he made is the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). This is a short version of Koh’s contribution to IPS. The full version would require a book…

Professor Tommy Koh Thong Bee wears many hats, has many interests and is a friend to many people across all social strata, professions and who live all around the globe.

In Singapore, he is known as the diplomat who served with distinction in New York as Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and in Washington D.C. as the country’s Ambassador to the United States…

Tommy Koh epitomises the very best qualities of a practitioner-scholar. Deeply steeped in and committed to education, he was a member of the first cohort of law students at what was then the University of Malaya from 1957 to 1961. The only graduate to be awarded first class honours — an achievement not to be repeated for a decade — he joined the faculty the following year as an assistant lecturer at the renamed University of Singapore. By 1971 he had been awarded tenure and promoted to Dean. Today, he remains a full professor at what is now the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Faculty of Law…

When the National University of Singapore (NUS) began founding residential colleges in 2010, one of its wisest innovations was to appoint prominent Singaporeans as their Rectors. While full-time academics were to serve as Masters, establishing practices and running things day-to-day, the Rectors would lend their significant reputations to the colleges and help set larger policies and agendas. As the founding Master of Tembusu College at NUS, I have been supremely lucky to serve with a founding Rector whose presence could not have given us more prestige, and whose policy experience could not be more valuable: Professor (Prof.) Tommy Koh…

The following sections are included:

• International Lawyer, Eminent Diplomat, and Friend to the Man in Need
• A Worldview Shaped by Love for the Less Fortunate
• Longstanding Support for the Blind
• Work with the Association
• Friend to the Nations, Champion of the People

I first met Tommy Koh (whom I call “Prof.”) when he was the Director at the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS). I was a fresh graduate running leadership programmes in secondary schools for girls. I had a longstanding interest in the area of peace and conflict studies and wanted to meet Singapore’s most eminent yet accessible ambassador for advice. I too believed in building a better world, and that it is possible. Though terribly nervous at the time, I was calmed by his gracious and warm presence and soon felt like I was speaking to an old family friend. I was struck by his attentiveness and was surprised that he invited me soon after to a high-level conference linking senior Asian and American policy and social leaders. The Asia Society’s Williamsburg Summit in 2003 gathered the who’s who of the region and the American policy elite, and I was a young nobody. Prof. Koh’s confidence in me — and his belief that a dive into the deep end would not cause me to drown — saved me. Kurt Hahn, the famous German educator and founder of the Outward Bound movement’s motto for youth was “est plus en vous” — “there is more in you than you think”. We all need people who dare to believe in us. Without words, I received this from Prof. Koh and I am deeply grateful for it…

I first heard of the name “Tommy Koh” in the late 1970s, when I was a primary school student. That was an era when schoolchildren received their news from broadcast television instead of Facebook or Twitter.

Back then, Professor Tommy Koh was Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) in New York. From time to time, the evening television news would report on the remarks and activities of Prof. Koh at the UN. I recall being thoroughly in awe of this larger-than-life figure who was out there, halfway around the world, flying Singapore’s flag and defending tiny Singapore’s interest in the midst of so many other countries much larger than ours…

I first ran into Tommy Koh in 1967, shortly before I joined the Singapore Legal Service in June that year. I recall that it was at an event I attended. I knew who Tommy was as his reputation had preceded him, not only as the top student of his cohort, but also as someone who would speak his mind. Our exchanges were limited to just some pleasantries. I had another fleeting encounter with Tommy in 1968, shortly before he left for New York to take up his appointment as Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN). From both those encounters, brief though they were, Tommy came across to me as someone warm and sociable…

In the 1990s Tommy was already internationally known as Singapore’s diplomat, statesman and negotiator in the international world community for his many roles not least as chair of UNCLOS (UN Conference on Law of the Sea). However, he still took many participants by surprise when he chaired the Main Committee at the Earth Summit (known also as the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, or UNCED) and also its Preparatory Committee (Prep Comm for short). A story is told: “Who is Tommy?” wondered some participants rather incredulously when he was nominated chair of the Earth Summit and its Prep Comm, and, to add to the surprise, Tommy was from the tiny island of Singapore, not always visible on the world map! Singapore was also not in the radar of things environment, let alone a sustainable city. In the years that followed Tommy proved his mettle as chair as he steered the complex negotiating process with his team into one of the most productive UN conferences on the environment…

I first met Tommy in 1976, when I came down from Harvard Law School to New York to be interviewed by the then Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Singapore, Professor S Jayakumar, for a teaching position in the Faculty. Tommy was Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, and I met him after my lunch and interview with Professor Jayakumar. I remember Tommy as very friendly and unassuming, but I also remember being very surprised that that he looked so young. I later learned that the reason he looked so young was because he became Singapore’s Permanent Representative at the age of 30. After meeting Tommy and Jaya, I decided to accept a position with the Faculty of Law.

I had very little contact with Tommy until the late 1980s, when he was the Singapore Ambassador to the United States. I accompanied the National University of Singapore (NUS) Jessup Moot Team to the international rounds of the Jessup Moot Competition in Washington. Because Tommy was a former Dean of the NUS Faculty of Law, he offered to meet the NUS team and treat them to lunch. I will never forget the time when one of our team members came down with a bad case of the flu, and Tommy personally delivered to the hotel a bowl of soup that his wife had specially prepared. I was simply astounded that the Singapore Ambassador would personally drive to the hotel in the evening to deliver soup to a visiting student…

When the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) approached the Singapore government in 1994 to co-organise a peacekeeping seminar for the debriefing of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) operation that had just ended, it had Professor Tommy Koh in mind. Prof. Koh was asked if he could convene such a seminar in partnership with Japan and with UNITAR. As the then Director of the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS), he saw an opportunity, indeed a necessity, for Singapore to offer itself as a neutral platform to conduct an exercise that everyone in the peacekeeping community agreed was essential, but one which no one had been able to undertake as yet…

The following sections are included:

• Introduction
• How Does the WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism Work?
• Singapore’s Involvement in WTO Dispute Cases
• Conclusion

The following sections are included:

• The Reclamation Areas in Dispute
• The Singapore Team
• Proceedings at ITLOS in Hamburg
• Joint Study Proceedings
• Settlement Agreement
• Reflections on Working with Ambassador Tommy Koh

On May 23, 2008, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) rendered its decision on the dispute between Malaysia and Singapore over the sovereignty of Pedra Branca Middle Rocks and South Ledge, a group of three maritime features at the eastern end of the Straits of Singapore. The dispute arose when Malaysia published a map in 1979 that showed Pedra Branca as being located within Malaysia’s territorial waters…

When I was an undergraduate in Cambridge in the 1970s, a Singaporean postgraduate student intimated to me that Tommy Koh was a potential prime minister and a rival to Lee Kuan Yew. Tommy Koh had become well known as Singapore’s first Permanent Representative to the UN and especially for his remarkable leadership in drafting and securing global support for the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea…

I had the privilege of working with Ambassador Tommy Koh when I was posted to our Embassy in Washington D.C. in 1984 to be his personal assistant.

My first encounter with him was the day I reported for work at the Embassy. After being introduced to him and after a short chat, he gave me a list containing names of international schools in Washington D.C. to choose a school for my then six-year-old son. When I told him that Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) had told me that my son could only go to a public school and only children of Heads of Missions were entitled to attend international schools, he was taken aback. He added that all Singaporeans should be treated equally under the Constitution. He told me not to worry but to go ahead and pick a school for my son, as he would write to MFA to seek approval for my son to go to an international school. He explained to MFA that the standard of public schools in Washington D.C. was not consistent and may not be suitable for Singaporean kids. I was very touched by his concern for my son’s welfare. He also made sure that my family and I were properly settled in…

On my way to meet Tommy Koh for the first time in June 1974, I was buoyed up by elation and excitement.

It was a balmy evening in Manhattan, a place I had dreamt of visiting since my mid-teens. There I was finally, the dream come true, walking in the shadow of skyscrapers up mid-town East Side, hardly believing that I was en route to spending 10 weeks in exotic Caracas. Dinner had been arranged at the home of the man who was to lead Singapore’s delegation to the epochal United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). The man was none other than Ambassador Tommy Koh, Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations. At 36 years of age, a mere 10 years older than me, he was already ensconced in his second tour as Singapore’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations…

In the late 1950s if you had seen an article on the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance (PPSO) in any publication of the University of Malaya, it was very likely that Tommy Koh was the writer. No one was so appalled by this piece of legislation as Tommy was. The cause of his unhappiness was that the law allowed for the arrest and detention of persons the government considered a threat to national security, without trial. This law was passed during David Marshall’s tenure in office as the first Chief Minister of Singapore. What prompted him to enact this law was the Hock Lee riots, one of the few violent events in Singapore’s history that shocked the nation. Tommy’s objection to the law was that it deprived a person the opportunity to defend himself in a court of law, which was the constitutional right of every citizen. This reflected probably the most important trait in Tommy’s character…

I am delighted and honoured indeed to contribute this essay in celebration of my dear friend Professor Tommy Koh’s 80th birthday.

My friendship with Tommy began in 1952 when we were both young students at Raffles Institution (RI). We had been posted to RI after passing the Secondary Schools’ Entrance Examination in 1951. Tommy was in Standard 6A, and I in Standard 6B, which is today’s equivalent of Secondary 1. Our classes were adjacent to each other and the design of the classrooms was such that every time Tommy entered or left his classroom, he had to pass through mine…

Some individuals are so outstanding that they are icons of Singapore. In the field of diplomacy, law and scholarship, Professor Tommy Koh has become so renowned both in Singapore and internationally that he can be truly described as an iconic Singapore personality.

My relationship with Tommy goes a long way back, to 1957. In our lifetime, our paths have intersected in many places. There is no other individual with whom I have worked so closely over such a long period. It is therefore an honour and privilege for me to contribute to this book tribute to Tommy for his 80th birthday.

The following section is included:

• List of Contributors