09 January 2017 — Officials of the Philippine Embassy in Singapore led by Minister and Consul General Victorio Mario M. Dimagiba Jr., acting in his capacity as Chargé d’Affaires, a.i., joined Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, Senior Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Antonio Carpio and other Philippine officials from the DFA and the Office of the Solicitor-General in the international conference on “The South China Sea Award: The Legal Dimension” at the invitation of the National University of Singapore Centre for International Law (NUS-CIL), which organized the event on 5-6 January 2017 at the Regent Hotel, Singapore.

The conference gathered legal academics and experts to examine and exchange views on the legal elements of the Award in terms of jurisdiction, historic rights, the status and entitlements of features in the South China Sea, and the protection of the marine environment, as well as implications of the Award on jurisprudence on the law of the sea.

Prof. S. Jayakumar, Prof. Tommy Koh, Prof. Lucy Reed and Asst. Prof. Robert Beckman of NUS-CIL chaired the various sessions that featured a list of distinguished panelists.

Upon his arrival in Singapore, Chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Senator Cayetano met with Prof. Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the NUS Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy for discussions on possible future collaborations as well as on developments in the Philippines and the region. END