he did it his way
The Tommy Koh Reader: Favorite Essays and Lectures – Tommy Koh
* World Scientific Publishing, 529 pages, nonfiction
A LITTLE black and white sketch on the cover of The Tommy Koh Reader gives a partial view of the author’s face.
Professor Tommy Koh’s collection of speeches and written works is also a partial showcase of one of Singapore’s most versatile, successful 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 range of causes 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 would allow growth with equity.”
He is still expressing 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, warning: “We must not allow the olive to become a pear”. .
After graduation, Koh studied law under former Prime Minister David Marshall and later lectured at the National University of Singapore Law School. But in 1968 he was asked to represent the newly independent nation as Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations. Although he later became dean of the Law School (1971-1974), he spent most of his professional life at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
As an “active participant” in the republic’s diplomacy for 41 years, Koh proved to be one of its most formidable negotiators. He described his agenda-setting tactics 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 a compromise. By 4:30 a.m., the delegates were so exhausted that they asked me to draft a compromise. I called for a short recess, and with the help of a dozen or so colleagues representing various interest groups, managed to draft a compromise I got my schedule.”
Koh combined his legal and diplomatic skills as president of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (1981-1982), which drafted “a constitution for the oceans.” The 1982 Law of the Sea Convention “has stood the test of time,” he wrote, “bringing legal order, security 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.
The “son of a book-loving father and an art-loving mother”, Koh was the founding president of the National Council for the Arts (1991) and in 1992 chaired the Singapore Censorship Review Committee.
“When attempts were made to stigmatize forum theater and The Necessary Stage,” he wrote to Singapore’s The Straits Times newspaper to defend them. But he failed to “protect performance artist Josef Ng from the wrath of law enforcement.”
That was not the only time Koh criticized government policies. He has been part of the establishment, but he has also been active in civil society.
“NGOs, by their very nature, must be a nuisance,” he told Asiaweek magazine in 1996. “But we need such positive nuisances.”
For example, he cited “Saving the trees in Lower Peirce Reservoir 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, as he is a patron of the Nature Society (Singapore), which led Singapore’s largest protest campaign in 1992, long before the dawn of social media.
NSS members first compiled an 80-page report on biodiversity in the catchment area and the impact the proposed golf course would have on water quality and the environment. Given the lack of response from the Government, they organized a campaign that collected around 17,000 signatures. The proposal was finally saved.
This collection will resonate with many Malaysians and Singaporeans, but readers further afield may have to turn to the internet for a few acronyms and cryptic references. An index and more footnotes in later editions would be helpful.