Associate Fellows

Name

KATTAN Victor  		  
Designation

Associate Fellow 
Qualifications

Ph.D. School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), LL.M. Leiden University, LL.B. (Hons.) Brunel University
Appointment(s)
  • Senior Research Fellow, Middle East Institute
  • Associate Fellow, Faculty of Law
  • Postdoctoral Fellow (2013-2015)
Email Address: meivmk@nus.edu.sg
Research Interests

Public international law
Legal history
Self-determination
Human rights
Use of force
Arab-Israeli dispute
 

Brief Biodata

Victor Kattan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Middle East Institute and an Associate Fellow at the Faculty of Law at the National University of Singapore (NUS) where he teaches a course on the use of force in international law. Previously, Victor was a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Law at NUS (2013-2015). Before Victor moved to Singapore, he was a legal adviser to the Government of Palestine in Ramallah on secondment from the United Nations Development Program in Jerusalem.

Victor has lectured extensively overseas and taken part in workshops organized by the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross. He has acted as a consultant for the European Council on Foreign Relations, the Oxford Research Group, and a number of governments. Victor has authored numerous articles on International Law and is the author of the critically acclaimed book From Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1891-1949 (London: Pluto Press, 2009). He is Area Advisor for Islam, the Middle East, and International Law for Oxford Bibliographies in International Law.

In 2017, Victor was announced the winner of the inaugural Asian Society of International Law Young Scholar Prize. Chosen by a committee comprising Professor Hilary Charlesworth, Professor B.S. Chimni, and Judge Xue Hanqin, this prize recognises the best article by a younger scholar published in the Asian Journal of International Law. His article, "Decolonizing the International Court of Justice: The Experience of Judge Sir Muhammad Zafrulla Khan in the South West Africa Cases", was selected by the judges "due to its fascinating archival research and the sophistication of the analysis". It was described as bringing "to light an important episode in international jurisprudence".

Victor is an Associate Tenant of Temple Garden Chambers in London.
 
Representative Publications

1. ‘Why US Recognition of Jerusalem Could be Contrary to International Law’, 47(3) Journal of Palestine Studies (2018), pp. 72-92.

2.'There was an elephant in the court room': Reflections on the role of Judge Sir Percy Spender (1897-1985) in the South West Africa Cases (1960-1966) after half a century' 31(1) Leiden Journal of International Law (2018), pp. 147-170.

3. Furthering the ‘war on terrorism’ through international law: how the United States and the United Kingdom resurrected the Bush doctrine on using preventive military force to combat terrorism”, 5(1) Journal on the Use of Force and International Law (2018), pp. 97-144.

4. "Self-determination during the Cold War: UN General Assembly Resolution 1514 (1960), the Prohibition of Partition, and the Establishment of the British Indian Ocean Territory (1965)", 19 The Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law (2015), pp. 419-468.

5. "To Consent or Revolt? European Public Law, the Three Partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, and 1795) and the Birth of National Self-Determination", 17 (2) The Journal of the History of International Law (2015), pp. 247-281.

6. "Decolonizing the International Court of Justice: The Experience of Judge Sir Muhammed Zafrulla Khan in the South West Africa cases" 5(2) The Asian Journal of International Law (2015), pp. 310-355.



 
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