Law of the Sea & Taiwan
Chiang Huang-chih, Professor, College of Law, National Taiwan University
Asian Law Institute (ASLI) Fellow 2004-05

Date: Monday, 14 February 2005
Time: 2pm
Venue: Lee Sheridan Room, NUS Faculty of Law (across from Reception Counter, 3rd Floor)

Abstract
Due to its special international legal status, Taiwan is almost isolated from formal international relations in the international community. On the other hand, as an oceanic State with a large fleet of fishing vessels and cargo-containers, Taiwan has to face the ever-changing norms relating to the governance and regulations regarding human activities at sea without any chance of formal participation in the decision making process. In such a situation, Taiwan appears to adopt a “try and error” policy towards many issues relating to the law of the sea. Be that as it may, recently, Taiwan has revised its overall ocean policy and aims to establish an assertive Ocean State. As a result, legislation has been introduced with various fine adjustments of past ocean policies.

This seminar will address the positions adopted by Taiwan to meet the ever-changing norms of the law of the sea. Furthermore, it is will examine these various positions and the underlying reasons for such adjustments.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Huang-chih CHIANG obtained his LLB degree at the Law School of the National Taiwan University (NTU). He received his LLM from the University of Washington (UW) under an Exchange Progamme between UW and NTU and went on to obtain his PhD in International Law from the University of London (Queen Mary & Westfield) under the supervision of Professor Alan E. Boyle.

He teaches international law related subjects, including public international law, the law of the sea and international institutional law at the NTU Law School and at the Department of Maritime Police University at the Central Police University in Taiwan.

He is currently an Associate Professor of Law at the National Taiwan University. He is also vice-Chairman of the Division of Law Enforcement of the Commission on Enhancement of Ocean Affairs, a cabinet-level commission chaired by the Premier of Taiwan.

He has been a consultant to Taiwanese delegations in various international conferences in connection with management and conservation of marine living resources. He has published various articles on the law of the sea in Chinese. In 2004, he released two volumes of the Law of the Sea (in Chinese).

ABOUT THE ASIAN LAW INSTITUTE (ASLI)
ASLI was established in March 2003 by a group of leading law schools in Asia. Based at the NUS Faculty of Law, its goal is to facilitate academic exchanges as well as research and teaching collaboration among colleagues from the ten founding institutions. The establishment of ASLI stems from the recognition that the diversity of legal traditions in Asia creates an imperative for Asian legal scholars to foster greater engagement with each other through collaborative research and teaching. For more on ASLI, click on http://law.nus.edu.sg/asli