Based on fieldwork conducted in Mindanao in February 2014, this video captured the aftermath of t... more Based on fieldwork conducted in Mindanao in February 2014, this video captured the aftermath of the armed crisis in Zamboanga City.
This article discusses Singapore’s implementation of the ASEAN Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (ML... more This article discusses Singapore’s implementation of the ASEAN Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), locally entitled the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act (MACMA). It recommends that Thai legislation make note that many of the revisions to Singapore’s MACMA are a product of local conditions. These include a rise in money laundering and financial crimes, a large cadre of foreign workers, sex trafficking, and a strong central government with high deference to the attorney general’s office. Thai law therefore should be crafted to address pressing legal issues in Thailand that may draw upon their MLAT. It should also make note of the strengths and weaknesses of Thailand’s existing legal framework regarding extradition and evidence.
This article interrogates the rise of the corporal punishment policies in Singapore. It argues th... more This article interrogates the rise of the corporal punishment policies in Singapore. It argues that such policies, although justified as a product of “Asian Values,” Singapore’s drive to modernize, or the ruling party’s attempt to aggrandize and entrench its position, can be traced to the British’s police state rule over Singapore. In order to understand the British police state, the jurisprudence of magistrate judge from 1939-1941, Conrad Oldham, will be examined in detail to demonstrate that many of the laws that Singapore is criticized for today can be traced back to the laws handed down by its former colonial rulers. Hopefully, this article will shed light on the complicated process of uprooting or internalizing a legal system foreign to the nation. It also aims to provide an alternative explanation that may enhance our understanding of the existing justifications behind, and criticisms of, Singapore’s corporal laws.
This Article examines the tension between freedom of speech and laws restricting the defamation o... more This Article examines the tension between freedom of speech and laws restricting the defamation of religion, using the case study of Singapore and the Amos Yee case. In 2015, four days after the death of revered former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Amos Yee, a sixteen-year-old blogger, posted a video called “Lee Kuan Yew is finally dead!” and, one day later, an image on his blog entitled “Lee Kuan Yew buttfucking Margaret Thatcher.” As part of Yee’s eight-minute-long video, Yee spent forty seconds criticizing Lee by drawing an unfavorable analogy between Lee and Jesus. As a result, Yee was charged under section 298 of the Penal Code, the law prohibiting the “uttering of words with the deliberate intent to wound the religious or racial feelings.” While international news highlighted Yee’s prosecution as a blatant attempt to silence criticism of the former Prime Minister, the courts held steadfast in their belief that Yee’s words were hurtful towards Christians, and that offending the ...
In the Philippines, transitional justice is plagued by questions about whether and how to deal wi... more In the Philippines, transitional justice is plagued by questions about whether and how to deal with the past as well as whether and what kind of justice is possible in the present. In 2014, the government ended its armed conflict with Muslim secessionists by enacting a peace deal with transitional justice provisions, but also proposed federalism as a more lasting solution to conflict. This article reads the agreement’s ‘dealing with the past’ framework as reflecting a conventional approach. It then highlights continuing Muslim experiences of land dispossession and human rights abuses. It shows how transitional justice can come with uncertainty about what it means to “move forward,” what “past” to overcome, and how the past is related to “justice.” Furthermore, it argues that as the country increasingly veers towards authoritarian rule, conventional applications of transitional justice are further impeded. It explores how federalism receives more enthusiastic support than transitiona...
This paper aims to shed Iight on the issue of corruption from an alternative perspective, one tha... more This paper aims to shed Iight on the issue of corruption from an alternative perspective, one that posits colonialism and later, neo-colonialism as now manifested by globalization, as the main perpetrator behind 'corrupt' activities. The paper will first discuss the current scholarship on corruption in the Philippines from its cultural aspects to the 'patron-client' political model. It will then shed light on the historical background to the corrupt 'patron' as a product of colonial intervention. Finally, it will look at how, once constructed, this colonial legacy is nurtured and maintained by the contemporary structural system of transnational capitalism.
Due to its WTO obligations, by 2010 Vietnam must open its banking system to the world. As a resul... more Due to its WTO obligations, by 2010 Vietnam must open its banking system to the world. As a result, the nation attempted to drastically modernize its state owned banks through partial privatization. This partial privatization, locally translated as equitization, proposed serious challenges to the existing legal infrastructure facilitating banks. To cope with these new challenges, in September 2009, Vietnam's new banking law. Decree 59/2009/ND-CP, was passed. An important change in the new banking law is its stricter regulation on the qualifications of managers. It is suspected that such regulation signals the nation's resistance to surrender control over its banks and commit to reforms. The new banking law also further relies on the problematic Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code. Faulty Penal and Criminal Procedure Codes can lead to fraudulent lawsuits and managers losing their positions. In spite of its problems, the new banking law is workable and a step in the rig...
During the colonial period, the Straits Settlements government formalised through law the declara... more During the colonial period, the Straits Settlements government formalised through law the declaration of public holidays marking religious festivals for the different communities. This practice was continued by the post-colonial state, apportioning public holidays “equally” amongst its citizenry. Adopting a historical perspective, this paper theorises the Singapore state’s allocation of public holidays for its citizens with a specific focus on the Singaporean Hindu community. The paper traces the journey of Tai Pucam as a declared public holiday in colonial Singapore to the 1950s when the Hindu community had two gazetted public holidays to 1968 when Tai Pucam was removed from the list of public holidays, a situation which persists into the present. The “making and unmaking of Tai Pucam as a public holiday” remains a controversial issue for Singaporean Hindus who express unhappiness over the fact that their religious community is granted only one religious holiday, when the norm in S...
Based on fieldwork conducted in Mindanao in February 2014, this video captured the aftermath of t... more Based on fieldwork conducted in Mindanao in February 2014, this video captured the aftermath of the armed crisis in Zamboanga City.
This article discusses Singapore’s implementation of the ASEAN Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (ML... more This article discusses Singapore’s implementation of the ASEAN Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), locally entitled the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act (MACMA). It recommends that Thai legislation make note that many of the revisions to Singapore’s MACMA are a product of local conditions. These include a rise in money laundering and financial crimes, a large cadre of foreign workers, sex trafficking, and a strong central government with high deference to the attorney general’s office. Thai law therefore should be crafted to address pressing legal issues in Thailand that may draw upon their MLAT. It should also make note of the strengths and weaknesses of Thailand’s existing legal framework regarding extradition and evidence.
This article interrogates the rise of the corporal punishment policies in Singapore. It argues th... more This article interrogates the rise of the corporal punishment policies in Singapore. It argues that such policies, although justified as a product of “Asian Values,” Singapore’s drive to modernize, or the ruling party’s attempt to aggrandize and entrench its position, can be traced to the British’s police state rule over Singapore. In order to understand the British police state, the jurisprudence of magistrate judge from 1939-1941, Conrad Oldham, will be examined in detail to demonstrate that many of the laws that Singapore is criticized for today can be traced back to the laws handed down by its former colonial rulers. Hopefully, this article will shed light on the complicated process of uprooting or internalizing a legal system foreign to the nation. It also aims to provide an alternative explanation that may enhance our understanding of the existing justifications behind, and criticisms of, Singapore’s corporal laws.
This Article examines the tension between freedom of speech and laws restricting the defamation o... more This Article examines the tension between freedom of speech and laws restricting the defamation of religion, using the case study of Singapore and the Amos Yee case. In 2015, four days after the death of revered former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Amos Yee, a sixteen-year-old blogger, posted a video called “Lee Kuan Yew is finally dead!” and, one day later, an image on his blog entitled “Lee Kuan Yew buttfucking Margaret Thatcher.” As part of Yee’s eight-minute-long video, Yee spent forty seconds criticizing Lee by drawing an unfavorable analogy between Lee and Jesus. As a result, Yee was charged under section 298 of the Penal Code, the law prohibiting the “uttering of words with the deliberate intent to wound the religious or racial feelings.” While international news highlighted Yee’s prosecution as a blatant attempt to silence criticism of the former Prime Minister, the courts held steadfast in their belief that Yee’s words were hurtful towards Christians, and that offending the ...
In the Philippines, transitional justice is plagued by questions about whether and how to deal wi... more In the Philippines, transitional justice is plagued by questions about whether and how to deal with the past as well as whether and what kind of justice is possible in the present. In 2014, the government ended its armed conflict with Muslim secessionists by enacting a peace deal with transitional justice provisions, but also proposed federalism as a more lasting solution to conflict. This article reads the agreement’s ‘dealing with the past’ framework as reflecting a conventional approach. It then highlights continuing Muslim experiences of land dispossession and human rights abuses. It shows how transitional justice can come with uncertainty about what it means to “move forward,” what “past” to overcome, and how the past is related to “justice.” Furthermore, it argues that as the country increasingly veers towards authoritarian rule, conventional applications of transitional justice are further impeded. It explores how federalism receives more enthusiastic support than transitiona...
This paper aims to shed Iight on the issue of corruption from an alternative perspective, one tha... more This paper aims to shed Iight on the issue of corruption from an alternative perspective, one that posits colonialism and later, neo-colonialism as now manifested by globalization, as the main perpetrator behind 'corrupt' activities. The paper will first discuss the current scholarship on corruption in the Philippines from its cultural aspects to the 'patron-client' political model. It will then shed light on the historical background to the corrupt 'patron' as a product of colonial intervention. Finally, it will look at how, once constructed, this colonial legacy is nurtured and maintained by the contemporary structural system of transnational capitalism.
Due to its WTO obligations, by 2010 Vietnam must open its banking system to the world. As a resul... more Due to its WTO obligations, by 2010 Vietnam must open its banking system to the world. As a result, the nation attempted to drastically modernize its state owned banks through partial privatization. This partial privatization, locally translated as equitization, proposed serious challenges to the existing legal infrastructure facilitating banks. To cope with these new challenges, in September 2009, Vietnam's new banking law. Decree 59/2009/ND-CP, was passed. An important change in the new banking law is its stricter regulation on the qualifications of managers. It is suspected that such regulation signals the nation's resistance to surrender control over its banks and commit to reforms. The new banking law also further relies on the problematic Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code. Faulty Penal and Criminal Procedure Codes can lead to fraudulent lawsuits and managers losing their positions. In spite of its problems, the new banking law is workable and a step in the rig...
During the colonial period, the Straits Settlements government formalised through law the declara... more During the colonial period, the Straits Settlements government formalised through law the declaration of public holidays marking religious festivals for the different communities. This practice was continued by the post-colonial state, apportioning public holidays “equally” amongst its citizenry. Adopting a historical perspective, this paper theorises the Singapore state’s allocation of public holidays for its citizens with a specific focus on the Singaporean Hindu community. The paper traces the journey of Tai Pucam as a declared public holiday in colonial Singapore to the 1950s when the Hindu community had two gazetted public holidays to 1968 when Tai Pucam was removed from the list of public holidays, a situation which persists into the present. The “making and unmaking of Tai Pucam as a public holiday” remains a controversial issue for Singaporean Hindus who express unhappiness over the fact that their religious community is granted only one religious holiday, when the norm in S...
In the Philippines, transitional justice is plagued by questions about whether and how to deal wi... more In the Philippines, transitional justice is plagued by questions about whether and how to deal with the past as well as whether and what kind of justice is possible in the present situation. In 2014, the Philippine government formally ended its armed conflict with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front by enacting a peace deal with transitional justice provisions. This article critically explores transitional justice in the Bangsamoro. It first offers a reading of the 'dealing with the past' framework of transitional justice endorsed by Swiss donors as largely reflecting a conventional approach that assumes that justice entails overcoming the past and transitioning to democracy. It then highlights continuing Moro experiences of land dispossession and human rights abuses, underscoring the limits of the 'dealing with the past' framework's recommendations on reparation and impunity. In doing so, it shows how transitional justice approaches can come with uncertainty about what it means to "move forward," competing strategic elite decisions about what "past" to overcome, and how the past is related to "justice." Finally, it argues that, as the country veers further towards authoritarian rule, conventional applications of transitional justice are further impeded. This article explores how federalism, in this context, receives enthusiastic support from elite and civil society actors in Mindanao for addressing the questions above more so than the transitional justice provisions of the peace agreement under the Duterte administration. Without offering measures for individual accountability for past violations, the government and supporters present federalism as a vision of historic justice, promising development and 'moving forward'.
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Papers by George Radics