The Harvard Experience – Crimson Essays (published by Harvard Singapore
Foundation, 2005)
A Letter from Dean Griswold
by Professor Tommy Koh
In 1961, I was in my final year studying law at the law faculty of the University of
Malaya – the antecedent of the National University of Singapore. In our final
examinations, we had both internal and external examiners. One of my external
examiners was Professor Sir James (Jim) Gower of London University. After the oral
examination, Sir Jim asked me for my future plans. I told him that I would like to
qualify to practise law and then proceed to England to study for a post-graduate
degree in law.
SIR JIM GOWER Sir Jim advised me to reconsider my plans. He said that the legal
education in England was very similar to that in Singapore. He thought I would
derive more value by studying at Harvard Law School than at Oxbridge. He said he
would recommend me to his friend, the dean of Harvard Law School.
A LETTER FROM DEAN GRISWOLD A few months later, I received a letter from
the then dean of Harvard Law School, Professor Erwin Griswold, offering me
admission to the LLM class, plus a Harvard Law School fellowship and a Fulbright
fellowship. It was an offer that was too good to refuse.
Two years later, in 1963, after I had been admitted to the legal profession and had
spent a year teaching at the law school, I left Singapore for Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and joined the most famous law school in America, and possibly in
the world, Harvard Law School.
HARVARD LAW SCHOOL I spent only one academic year, 1963-1964, at Harvard
Law School. But Harvard has made an indelible impact on my life and on my attitude
towards legal education and towards the law. Let me explain how this has happened.
PASSION OF THE TEACHERS First, how did Harvard influence my attitude towards
legal education? I learnt many things at Harvard. I was very inspired by the passion
of the professors for their work. All of them seemed to be writing learned books,
articles or briefs. They were in their offices day and night. Their commitment to legal
education and to the law seemed total. I felt privileged to study in a community
where the teachers shared a high sense of purpose and were constantly thinking,
talking and breathing about the law.
HARVARD CASE CLASS Another thing which both inspired and intimidated me was
the manner in which classes were taught. In Singapore, almost all my courses were
taught by lectures and tutorials. At Harvard, almost all the classes were taught by
the case class. Before going to each class, we had to read and digest the assigned
reading.
In class, we had to sit in our assigned seats. The teacher would come to class
carrying a huge chart with our photos and names. The teaching was in the form of a
Socratic dialogue between the teacher and the students. The case class was a
torture for students who were unprepared, timid or inarticulate. It was exhilarating for
the good students. This method of teaching is, actually, not new. Both Socrates and
Confucius had used it in their teaching.
TEACHING LAW IN ‘THE GRAND MANNER’ Unlike the traditional British style of
legal education, which emphasised the black letter law, at Harvard, law was taught in
what Justice Oliver Wendel Holmes had called ‘the grand manner’. What did that
mean? It meant that we were encouraged to investigate the policy behind the law. It
was desirable to do this so that we would be able to interpret and apply the law to
achieve its intended policy. We were also encouraged to read non-legal materials
because many solutions to a society’s problems needed an inter-disciplinary
approach. I took courses in law and economics, law and physical planning, law and
sociology and, law and philosophy. We were challenged to think whether law could
and should always be an instrument of justice. We agonised over the lawyer’s
ethical response to a situation in which the law was being used as an instrument of
injustice or oppression. We were also challenged to be creative and to think out of
the box. We were told not to be limited by precedent and by what had been tried
before. We were rewarded, not punished, for coming up with new ways of solving a
client’s legal problems, of accommodating competing legal interests and of promoting
justice.
FROM HARVARD TO THE UN Second, I think I should give Harvard some credit for
my long connection with the United Nations. When my academic year was coming to
an end, I saw Professor Joseph Leininger, the director of International Legal Studies,
to seek his advice on what I could do during the summer of 1964 before I went
across the Atlantic to join Cambridge University. In an act of serendipity or divine
inspiration, Professor Leininger advised me to apply for an internship at the UN. I did
so and was accepted. And the rest, as they say, is history. Four years later, in 1968,
I would be back at the UN as Singapore’s Permanent Representative. I would spend
13 years of my life at the United Nations.
LAW OF THE SEA As I look back on my long career at the UN, I derive great
satisfaction from four challenging assignments. The first was to chair the Third UN
Conference on the Law of the Sea. The conference was convened in 1973 to write a
new constitution for the world’s oceans. The president of the conference, Shirley
Amerasinghe of Sri Lanka, had died of a heart attack in 1980. Following an
unsuccessful attempt by the Asia Group to mediate between two competing
candidates, the group requested that I succeed Amerasinghe as the president of the
conference. I had the daunting task of resolving all outstanding disagreements and
forging consensus on the 320 articles and nine annexes of the treaty. The 1982
Convention on the Law of the Sea has survived the test of time. It has brought legal
order, certainty and pace to the world’s oceans and seas. It is often regarded as one
of the UN’s most important contributions to the rule of law in the world.
EARTH SUMMIT The second assignment was to chair the preparatory committee
for, and the main committee at, the UN Conference on Environment and
Development, often referred to as the Earth Summit. The UN had convened the
historic Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972.
That conference had brought to humankind’s urgent attention, the need to protect the
world’s natural environment. Twenty years later, the UN decided to convene an even
more ambitious conference, to reconcile environment with development. I was
elected by the UN in 1990 to chair the preparatory committee. After two years of
hard work, the committee was unable to agree on any of the substantive issues
except for the Rio Declaration of Principles on Environment and Development. When
the Summit convened in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, I was elected to chair the main
committee. It was a race against time. In the space of just over a week, we had to
achieve consensus and remove the brackets around over 300 disputed texts. We
worked day and night, in big groups and small groups. It was a miracle that we were
eventually able to adopt all the deliverables of the Earth Summit by consensus.
MAKING PEACE BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE BALTIC STATES In 1993, the then
UN Secretary-General, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, appointed me as his special envoy to
undertake a peace mission to Rusia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithunia. Following the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, the three Baltic States had recovered their
independence. There were, however, some Russian troops and many Rusians
settlers in those countries. My mandate was to persuade Russia to agree to an early
withdrawal of their troops and to persuade the three Baltic States to treat the Russian
settlers, especially the elderly ones, with kindness. On the completion of my mission,
I submitted a report to the UN General Assembly through the Secretary-General. I
am very pleased that today, Russia and her three Baltic neighbours live at peace with
one another and that Estonia, Latvia and Lithunia are part of the European Union.
HELPING CAMBODIA Cambodia has played a big part in my life since 1965.
Cambodia was one of the first countries to recognise Singapore’s independence. At
the request of the Singapore government, the Singapore Institute of International
Affairs was requested to send a goodwill delegation to Cambodia, in response to an
invitation from Prince Norodom Sihanouk. I was a member of that delegation. In
1970, I was at the UN when Sihanouk was overthrown by General Lon Nol. In 1975,
I was back at the UN when the Lon Nol government was overthrown by the Khmer
Rouge. In 1978, the Khmer Rouge government was, in turn, overthrown by an
invading vietnamese army. From 1979 to 1991, I was part of the ASEAN team at the
UN whose objectives were (a) to liberate Cambodia from Vietnam’s occupation; (b) to
prevent the Khmer Rouge from usurping power following Vietnam’s withdrawal; and
(c) to give the Cambodian people an opportunity to choose their own government
and destiny. These objectives were finally achieved in 1991 at the Paris Conference.
ASEAN’s persistent diplomacy has paid off. Cambodia has been given a new lease
of life.
LOVE AFFAIRS WITH AMERICA Finally, I would like to give thanks to Sir Jim
Gower, Dean Erwin Griswold and Harvard for having brought me to America in 1963.
That fateful journey would alter the rest of my life. I have spent 20 happy years in
America, a country which I admire and regard as my second home. In another twist
of fate, I was to meet Dean Griswold again many years later when I was Singapore’s
ambassador in Washington DC and he served as President Reagan’s solicitorgeneral. Griswold was already in his seventies but still fit and feisty. After he retired
from government service, he remained in Washington and worked in a leading law
firm. I had lunch with him on several occasions. He was very happy to learn that his
1961 letter to me had had such a major impact on my life journey.
I served as Singapore’s ambassador to the United States from 1984 to 1990. The
highlight of my posting was the campaign to persuade the two houses of the US
Congress to invite Mr Lee Kuan Yew to address a joint session of the US Congress.
The happy event occurred in October 1985. More recently, I was privileged to have
served as Singapore’s chief negotiator in the two-year negotiations to conclude a free
trade agreement between the US and Singapore. I would like to thank The Asia
Foundation for having asked me twice, in 1992 and in 2004, to chair workshops on
Southeast Asia and to write reports on America’s role in this region. I have also had
the pleasure of serving on the board of directors of the Institute for the Study of
Diplomacy at Georgetown University and as a co-convenor of the Williamsburg
Conference of The Asia Society.
My association with Harvard has been a happy one. Over the past 40 years, my
links with Harvard have expanded beyond the Law School to include the Kennedy
School, the Business School, the Yengching Institute and the Institute for
International Development. One of my happiest memories was the celebration of
Harvard’s 350th birthday. On that occasion, I had the great pleasure of speaking on a
panel at the Kennedy School on De Tocqueville Revisited.
Being a son of Harvard has been a great blessing.