Professor Stavros Brekoulakis highlights interdisciplinarity in international law, in inaugural Michael and Laura Hwang Professorial Lecture

When World War II ended in 1945, the world learnt an important lesson: Countries need to be held accountable for their actions, and domestic laws and courts alone were insufficient to perform this role.

Subsequently, a large number of international treaties were signed and institutions set up. These included the Bretton Woods Agreement in 1945, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, and a network of international trade and investment treaties.

“The lofty aim was that more international law would foster global peace, economic cooperation, human rights and prosperity,” said Professor Stavros Brekoulakis in his inaugural lecture, Law and the Expansion of Politics: The Case of International Arbitration, on 20 February 2025.

Prof Brekoulakis, a leading global authority on international arbitration, is the first Chair appointed under the Michael and Laura Hwang Professorship in International Arbitration for an initial three-year term. He began his tenure at the NUS Faculty of Law in February 2024.

In his lecture, he took the audience—which included Dr Michael Hwang SC, his wife Laura, along with about 200 legal academics, practitioners, and students—through the historical impact of international law on the global order, and its decline today as nations withdraw from international treaties.

Expanding the space where law and politics intersect

“Should a private international tribunal decide whether a decision of a foreign government on matters concerning its economy, public health and environment is lawful under international law?” Prof Brekoulakis asked in rhetoric, suggesting that while previously most people would have answered this question with a resounding ‘yes’, today a critical mass is likely to say that government decisions on public policy are essentially political questions that should be left to the discretion of the government.

The pushback against global rules and law is a result of countries finding themselves increasingly subjected to scrutiny by international tribunals on a wide range of matters.

“While initially the questions referred to international tribunals were relatively straightforward… there came a point where arbitrators were routinely asked to decide fundamental questions of public policy, including how states should respond to pandemics or to financial and climate crises,” noted Prof Brekoulakis.

“How can three people (from a private international tribunal) decide important questions of public policy? How can they hold damages of hundreds of millions against the state?”

Some solutions have been proposed, such as relooking the appointment of international arbitrators, or amending certain laws to provide states with more space to regulate their affairs. But these suggestions still “aim to preserve the status quo, and are underpinned by the familiar idea that a state’s decision of policy should be subject to international law and a system of independent justice”, he observed.

As a result, the current state of “unabashed international law is unsustainable, as political contestation always catches up with the law”, he concluded. Yet, this system cannot be dismantled as states should still be accountable to a system of independent justice that can act as a check and balance.

As the concept of public interest is one that transcends disciplines, he proposed that international law should adopt an interdisciplinary approach that involves contributions from diverse disciplines including political science, economics, sociology, public policy and environmental studies.

“We need to work across disciplines, and develop a coherent theory of public policy for the purpose of assessing questions about whether the protection of international public law and investment laws are sufficient,” he said.

Responding to a question from the audience on how the transition in international law would look like, he said: “We still need to understand how to develop another system that will account for public interest more effectively. That is one of the immediate tasks—then we can see how we can insert more interdisciplinarity into the decision-making process.”

Another audience member asked if Prof Brekoulakis’ proposal of a multi-disciplinary system would still run into the same issues confronting international arbitration today. To that, he replied: “Even if we left the legal principles today as they are…if we had the views of economists, of political scientists, and of sociologists, I believe that we might have come to a better outcome in many cases.”

A gift to nurture excellence

Prof Brekoulakis’ vision for arbitration as an integrated discipline of research, teaching and practice is aligned with the interdisciplinary approach that NUS Law believes in, noted Professor Andrew Simester, Dean of NUS Law, in his earlier welcome address.

“That is what we do—research-led teaching that treats the law as a living problem,” said Prof Simester, adding that NUS Law is very happy to have Prof Brekoulakis on board.

The Michael and Laura Hwang Professorship in International Arbitration was set up with a S$2 million endowment gift from Dr Hwang, an internationally recognised arbitrator and Senior Counsel.

Addressing the audience, Mrs Hwang said that the idea began from a family dinner where they agreed that the family’s philanthropy efforts should reflect Dr Hwang’s achievements in law and arbitration. “We are happy to be able to fund an endeavour that will help others attain excellence in these fields,” she said.

Dr Hwang said his wife had encouraged him to make the gift as a memorial of his commitment to the development of international arbitration in Singapore. “It is also an advance gift from me to my wife in celebration of our 50^th wedding anniversary which falls this year, though it has not stopped her from requesting additional gifts,” he quipped, to laughter from the room.

Dr Hwang’s affiliation with NUS dates back to the late 1960s when he joined the Faculty as a part-time lecturer, first in family law, and later in contract law, labour law and company law over a span of about 10 years. He continued to stay involved with the Faculty as an external examiner and thesis reviewer, and was later appointed as a member of the Faculty’s Consultative Committee which managed to persuade the Faculty to adopt new subjects relevant to international commercial law.

Commenting on Prof Brekoulakis’ appointment as the first professor under his and his wife’s namesake, Dr Hwang said: “I cannot think of a more appropriate choice, and I look forward to a new era of academic development of international arbitration jurisprudence in Singapore under his leadership.”

This story was first published on 5 March 2025 on NUS News. Click here for more NUS News stories.