Sienho Yee © 易 显 河 (中文简历)
Professor
of International Law, China Foreign Affairs University
Member,
Institut de Droit International ;
**Member of the US Supreme Court Bar
Author:
Towards an International Law of
Co-progressiveness ** Editor-in-chief, Chinese Journal of International Law
(an Oxford journal; SSCI)
Email: sienho[AT]chinesejil.org
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Sienho Yee’s research interests are in
public international law (PIL), especially the jurisprudence of the
International Court of Justice (ICJ), international dispute settlement in
general and some structural questions of the international legal system. His
articles on these issues and the international law of co-progressiveness have
appeared in fine journals (List of publications) such
as American Journal of
International Law, Columbia Law
Review, Chinese
Journal of International Law; European Journal of International Law, German
Yearbook of International Law, International and Comparative Law Quarterly
(ICLQ), Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law, and Max Planck
Encyclopedia of Public International Law, and some have been used as
reading materials in august universities and cited in good casebooks, and
cited, reviewed, abstracted, debated in good journals and used in international
litigation. His paper, “A
Proposal to Reformulate Article 23 of the ILC Draft Statute for an
International Criminal Court”, 19 Hastings ICLR (1996), 529 (on the
relationship between the United Nations Security Council and the International
Criminal Court), has been considered by some to have contributed to “the
origination of the principle employed in” an important provision, Article 16,
of the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court. Another paper, The Interpretation of “Treaties in Force”
in Article 35(2) of the Statute of the ICJ, 47 ICLQ (1998), 884 was reproduced
by Germany as Annex 31 to its Preliminary Objections filed in the Legality of Use of Force (Serbia and Montenegro
v. Germany) case before the International Court of Justice and discussed in
that filing (pp. iv; 28) and was described as an “excellent study” [sic] in
Italy’s filing (pp. 11-12), and then was quoted by one paragraph in Judge
Elaraby’s 8 separate opinions (ICJ Reports 2004, pp. 262, 508, 653, 798, 944,
1093, 1240, 1385) in the related cases. His arguments were discussed several
times in open court on 9 May 2006 in another related case at the ICJ. His
works have also been cited in the Mauritius v. UK arbitration award and in a
separate opinion in the California Supreme Court. He contributed two
papers with almost 100 pages on Article 40 (how to start a case) and Article 45
(the President’s control over proceedings) of the ICJ Statute to the book The Statute of the International Court of
Justice: A Commentary (Oxford University Press 2006; 2d edn, 2012; 3d edn,
2019). He was the principal
presenter on Article 38 of the Statute and applicable law at the Seminar
organized by the ICJ to celebrate the 70th anniversary of its founding (2016),
and the invited author on
territory for the 150th anniversary celebration book of the Institut de Droit
International (IDI 2023). In July 2012, he delivered a special course of
lectures on “Jus Cogens at the
International Court of Justice” at The Hague Academy of International Law. He
also delivered other special courses on aspects of dispute settlement at
Thessaloniki Institute on standing to invoke State responsibility in 2003, at
Xiamen Academy on ICJ Statute, art.38(1)(d) in 2007 and again at Xiamen Academy
on the dispute settlement
system under the UN Law of the Sea Convention in 2014. In dispute
settlement, he has served as former judicial law clerk to Judge Li Haopei,
Appeals Chamber, UN Int’l Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (1995-96)
and to Judge Robert E. Cowen, US Court of Appeals, 3d Cir. (1993-94), and as
adviser, consultant, counsel and/or advocate to governmental authorities from
different continents since 2000 in various matters including case preparation
before the ICJ and ITLOS and amicus
briefing before the US Supreme Court (in Kiobel case;
Vitamins
cases ). He also served as Sub-reporter on ICJ Reform for the ILA Study
Group on UN Reform and former Co-Chair and Chair (2001-04), ILA American Branch
Committee on International Dispute Settlement.
In a paper published in April 2001 he proposed the concept of
the “international law of
co-progressiveness” and coined this phrase to capture the spirit of the
current stage of international law development following the law of co-existence
and the law of co-operation. His
exposition of this concept has been used as teaching materials internationally
(Course),
featured in Xinhua Digests
and Renmin University Reprints. Innsbruck University invited him to give a special
lecture on the concept. Martinus Nijhoff has published his
“collected works” elaborating the concept: Towards
an International Law of Co-progressiveness (Part
I, 2004; * Part
II: Membership, Leadership and Responsibility, 2014). He has also been invited to participate in other world
projects such as the Max Planck Encyclopedia
of Public International Law and International
Law in Domestic Courts.
His educational and professional qualifications include his Juris Doctor degree in 1993 from Columbia Univ. Law School (Columbia
Law Review note author) and
membership in the Bar of New York State (1994) and the Bar of the US Supreme Court (2004). He was also a student in some other most
interesting places.
He was
elected membre associé of Institut de Droit
International in 2009 in Napoli at 44, and became membre in 2013 in Tokyo.
His experiences include being: (1) Professor of
International Law, China Foreign Affairs University; (2) MOE Changjiang Xuezhe
Professor of International Law and Chief Expert, Wuhan University Institute of
Boundary and Ocean Studies and Institute of International Law, Wuhan, China;
(2a) Distinguished Professor, National University of Malaysia; (3)
Editor-in-chief (founding co-editor-in-chief), Chinese Journal of International Law (Oxford; SSCI) & Advisory Board
Member and formerly editor, International Law in
Domestic Courts (Oxford) and member of various other boards of editors; (4)
Project Chief Expert, “State Major Research Project” on “China’s Constructive
Role in the Settlement of International Disputes and Global Crisis-situations”
(China Social Sciences Foundation); (5) Member of IDI Commission on
Jurisprudence and Precedent in International Law and others; (6) former
counsel, IMF Legal Dept; (8) associate, Sullivan & Cromwell, New York; (9)
formerly, Fowler Hamilton Visiting Research Fellow, Christ Church, Oxford;
visitor at Harvard, Humboldt, and Tel Aviv; Rockefeller Bellagio Resident
Fellow; Tengfei Professor of International Law and Director of the Silk Road
Institute of International Law, Xi’an Jiaotong University, China; associate
professor of law at the University of Colorado School of Law; lecturer at Queen
Mary, University of London and teacher of international law in other
interesting places.
He has given
invited presentations/lectures at interesting
places including Beijing (on international
law of co-progressiveness); the Old Library, All Souls College, Oxford (on Opinio Juris); the “Very Hot Palace” at St Petersburg,
Russia during its 300th anniversary celebrations (on Forum prorogatum returns to the International
Court of Justice); Oxford Public International Law Group (on ITLOS
presidency) and Wuhan (on member
responsibility for acts of an international organization).