NUS Law welcomes Visiting Faculty – AY 2023/2024 Semester 1

NUS Law is delighted to welcome the following Visiting Faculty for AY 2023/2024 Phase 1 of Semester 1:  Professor John Paterson; Kwa Geok Choo Distinguished Visitor Martin Petrin; Professor Michael Tsimplis; Peter Ellinger  Professor Gerard McMeel KC; Professor Barnali Choudhury; Senior Fellow You Chuanman; and Professor Andrea Stazi.

After a briefing by Professor Wayne Courtney, Vice-Dean of Academic Affairs and Undergraduate Studies at NUS Law, on 14 August, they were warmly introduced to the NUS Law family at the Start of Term Welcome Lunch, which was held at the Oei Tiong Ham Lobby on 16 August.

At the Welcome Lunch, Dean Andrew Simester gave a quick introduction, before separate faculty members took turns to describe a visiting professor’s biography, offering details on their illustrious background. Amid the informal lunch setting, the atmosphere was convivial, with much laughter and cheerful conversation.

NUS Law is delighted to welcome the following Visiting Faculty for AY 2023/2024 Phase 2 of Semester 1: Yong Shook Lin Professor in IP Law Graeme Austin; Professor Du Ming; Senior Fellow Elena Pribytkova; Senior Fellow Jonathan Lim; Professor Christopher Hare; Professor Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler; and Professor George A. Bermann.

Their briefing, also chaired by Professor Wayne Courtney, was held on 4 September.

About the Professors and their modules:

Phase 1:

Barnali Choudhury (Int’l Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility)

Professor Barnali Choudhury is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Jack & Mae Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime and Security at the Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. Prior to joining Osgoode, she was a Professor at University College London and academic director of UCL’s Global Governance Institute.

You Chuanman (Law, FinTech and the Platform Economy)

Dr You Chuanman is currently heading the Centre for Regulation and Global Governance at the Institute for International Affaires, CUHK-Shenzhen. He was an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business, NUS Faculty of Law. Prior to that, he had the privilege to pursue his academic passion in several institutions, including but not limited to, Singapore Management University, Tel Aviv University, University of Sussex and University of Hamburg.

Gerard McMeel (Investment Banking and Investment Firms)

Professor Gerard McMeel is Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Reading. He lectures and supervises in contract law, commercial law, unjust enrichment and banking and financial services law. Professor McMeel was previously the Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Manchester, and a Professor of Law at the University of Bristol. He has held visiting positions at Duke University, Tel-Aviv University, the University of South Carolina, Hong Kong University and Singapore Management University. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel (now King’s Counsel) in March 2020.

John Paterson (International and Comparative Oil and Gas Law)

Professor John Paterson is a Professor of Law at the University of Aberdeen. Professor Paterson trained as a solicitor in the Office of the Solicitor to the Secretary of State for Scotland before pursuing an academic career. After studying at the EUI, Florence, Italy, he was a Research Assistant at the Centre de Philosophie du Droit, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, where he worked principally on the Governance Project with the Forward Studies Unit of the European Commission. He was Senior Lecturer and then Reader at the University of Westminster between 1998 and 2004 when he joined the University of Aberdeen as a Reader. He was appointed Professor of Law in August 2011. He was Acting Head of School 2011-12 and Vice Principal for Internationalisation 2016-18. He is a co-founder of the Centre for Energy Law and directs Aberdeen’s involvement in the North Sea Energy Law Programme.

Martin Petrin (Anglo-American Corporate Governance)

Martin Petrin is the Dancap Private Equity Chair in Corporate Governance at Western University, jointly appointed to the DAN Department of Management and Organizational Studies and the Faculty of Law. He was previously a Professor of Corporate Law and Governance at University College London (UK), where he also served as Vice Dean for Innovation & Enterprise.

Andrea Stazi (Biotechnology Law)

Andrea Stazi is a Professor of Comparative Law and Biotechnology Law at San Raffaele Roma University. He is also Academic Fellow of the Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence and the Law – TRAIL at NUS Law. Previously he was Associate Professor of Comparative Law and New Technologies Law and Director of the Innovation Law Laboratory at European University of Rome, and a Visiting Professor at the Francisco de Vitoria University of Madrid, at the Beijing Normal University and at the Singapore Management University, Research Fellow at NUS, Research Associate at the FLACSO University of Buenos Aires, Max Planck Institute for Competition & IP Law of Munich, Institute for Information Law of the University of Amsterdam, Coordinator of the Master in Competition and Innovation Law at Luiss University of Rome and Adjunct Professor at the University of Bologna.

Michael Tsimplis (Maritime Law)

Michael (Mikis) Tsimplis is a Professor at the Law School of the City University of Hong Kong since 2018. Before joining CityU, Professor Tsimplis has worked in various academic and leadership positions for the University of Southampton and before that for the UK Natural Environment Research Council. He has taught a number of courses including Admiralty Law and Enforcement, Charterparties, Bills of Lading, Energy and Environment Law, Law of International Sales, Legal Concepts and Law of the Marine Environment in academic and professional courses around the world. Professor Tsimplis undertakes research in marine, maritime, commercial and environmental law as well as keeping an interest in oceanography and environmental science.

Phase 2:

Graeme Austin (Public & Private International Copyright Law)

Graeme Austin is a Professor at the Melbourne Law School and Chair of Private Law at Victoria University of Wellington. Prior to taking up these appointments, he served for nearly ten years a tenured professor at the University of Arizona, most recently as the J Byron McCormick Professor of Law. Professor Austin holds an LLM and JSD from Columbia Law School, with first degrees (LLB, LLM, BA(Hons)) from Victoria University of Wellington. A member of the New Zeland Bar, he holds a current practising certificate as a Barrister Sole. Between 1999–2001, he was a senior solicitor at the Auckland office of Chapman Tripp.

George A. Bermann (International Arbitration & the New York Convention)

The director of the Center for International Commercial & Investment Arbitration at Columbia Law School, Professor George A. Bermann is a world-renowned authority on comparative law, EU law, international trade contracts, WTO dispute resolution, and transnational litigation and arbitration. For more than four decades, he has been an active international arbitrator in commercial and investment disputes in all sectors, including general commercial contract, construction, intellectual property, energy, oil and gas, competition law, insurance, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, distributorship and franchising, transportation, and employment. He also serves regularly as an expert witness before international arbitral tribunals as well as before courts in arbitral-related cases.

 Ming Du (China’s State Capitalism & Future of Int’l Economic Law)

Professor Ming Du is Professor in Chinese Law and Co-Director of Global Policy Institute at Durham University. He was raised in China and completed his Chinese law training at Tsinghua University School of Law in Beijing. He holds an LLM from Harvard Law School, where he was a Victor and William Fung Fellow and a DPhil from University of Oxford (Brasenose College) where he was a Clarendon Scholar.

Christopher Hare (Trade Finance Law)

Professor Christopher Hare is the Travers Smith Associate Professor of Corporate and Commercial Law at the University of Oxford and a Tutorial Fellow in Law at Somerville College, Oxford. He has previously held posts at the University of Auckland and Jesus College, Cambridge. He has degrees from Trinity College, Cambridge (undergraduate), Harvard Law School (LLM) and Brasenose College, Oxford (BCL). His teaching and research interests lie broadly in the law of obligations and the corporate and commercial law fields, with particular focus on domestic and international banking law, corporate finance, and shareholder remedies.

Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler (Current Challenges to Investment Arbitration)

Professor Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler practices international commercial, investment and sports arbitration. She is regularly ranked among the top arbitrators worldwide; a study of investment arbitration released in 2016 concluded that she was the “most influential arbitrator in the world”. Gabrielle is a Professor Emerita at Geneva University Law School where she is also the founder and on the Faculty of the Geneva LLM in International Dispute Settlement (MIDS), a joint program of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and Geneva Law School, and the President of the Council of the Geneva Center for International Dispute Settlement (CIDS). She is or was a Visiting Professor at several universities (NUS, Tsinghua, Georgetown, Sciences Po Paris, MIDS). She teaches international arbitration law and taught private international law in the past.

Jonathan Lim (Arbitration and Dispute Resolution in China)

Jonathan Lim is a Partner in WilmerHale’s International Arbitration Practice Group. He is a triple-qualified English solicitor, Singapore advocate and New York lawyer with a broad practice covering all types of commercial and investment treaty arbitrations seated in common law and civil law jurisdictions worldwide, including England, New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, France, Brazil, The Netherlands, Switzerland, and Sao Paolo.  His experience also includes ad hoc and institutional arbitrations under the rules of the HKIAC, ICC, ICDR, LCIA, PCA, SIAC, UNCITRAL, and others.  He has represented both private sector and government clients in the aerospace, construction, energy, financial services, insurance, telecommunications, technology, and retail sectors, among others.  Mr Lim has also worked on WTO dispute settlement matters and advised international organisations and governments in Africa and Asia on public international law issues.  Notable ongoing representations include acting for a British national in one of the first reported PCA investment arbitrations against the People’s Republic of China, with over US$300 million in dispute, and representing a group of Chinese investors in a PCA arbitration against Ukraine arising out of the blocked takeover of a leading aerospace manufacturer, with over US$4.5 billion in dispute.  He is also lead counsel for an Asian group of companies in three US-seated AAA and ICDR arbitrations regarding the termination of a suite of over 140 distribution and franchise contracts across East and Southeast Asia.