The Law students of Singapore Management University are proud to introduce their inaugural law publication, the Singapore Law Journal (SLJ). The journal is run by Lexicon, and publishes commentaries, case notes, and/or articles on current developments and issues in all legal fields. In particular, we welcome contributions on subjects relevant to Singapore law, common law … Continue reading Singapore Law Journal
Airplane Accidents – Understanding your rights under Article 17(1) and 21(1) of the Montreal Convention
October 29, 2018. Flight 610, Lion Air smashes into the Java Sea off Indonesia, killing all 189 souls aboard. This is swiftly followed by Flight 302, Ethiopian Airlines, which crashes in Bishoftu, Ethiopia. Again, no survivors are left. Preliminary investigations reveal that the auto-pilot systems in both cases forced the plane into a death dive, giving its crew little time to react. Claims for compensation are still pending, with families apparently pressured into signing away their legal rights. This article therefore seeks to inform the public of their rights in such cases. It sets out the legal regime that governs aircraft accidents, and the type of losses compensable, whether in the event of death or a serious injury to a loved one.
Protection from the Peeping Tom: Interpreting the New Offence of Voyeurism
Under the Criminal Law Reform Act 2019, it is an offence for any person to observe or record someone doing a private act, without that person’s consent. It is also an offence to possess, gain access to, distribute, or threaten to distribute images so recorded.This paper focuses on the core offence of voyeurism, and its interpretation under the new laws.
Grab-Uber merger: observations and implications for Singapore’s competition regime
In 2018, the battle between Uber and Grab in Singapore was dramatically concluded with Grab announcing the acquisition of Uber's Southeast Asian business. However, the spectacle was far from over, with the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) promptly intervening to investigate the merger. The CCCS eventually found that s 54 of the Competition Act (Cap 50B, 2006 Rev Ed) had been infringed. It then ordered remedies to mitigate the anti-competitive effects, and imposed hefty financial penalties on both parties. This article considers the CCCS's decision and approach, and shows that the CCCS’ response was unfortunately less robust than desired, which spells negative implications for Singapore’s competition regime.
Amicus Briefs in the WTO: An Uneasy Compromise
An amicus curiae means a “friend of the court” who, though not a party to a lawsuit, provides the court with information or a brief because of his strong interest in the dispute. Since the Appellate Body ("AB") of the World Trade Organisation ("WTO") decided that panels may accept amicus curiae briefs in 1998, there has been extensive debate over this issue for 20 years. One of the chief criticisms from Member states of this decision is that allowing non-state actors to access the Dispute Settlement Mechanism would undermine the “Member-driven” nature of the WTO. Notwithstanding such criticisms, the AB has weathered the storms and continually affirmed the power of the WTO adjudicatory bodies to accept amicus briefs. Ironically, despite this steadfast position, they have displayed great reluctance to actually utilise amicus briefs. This seems to be an uneasy compromise to avoid potential political costs in reaction to the explicit protests from Members. Contrary to commentators that commend the AB for its management of the status quo, this paper argues against this uneasy compromise.
Recognising the duty to cooperate in international commercial contracts
The duty of contracting parties to cooperate in the performance of commercial contracts is at once both intuitive, and utterly foreign. On the one hand, all commercial relationships require a degree of trust, and a party may reasonably expect that the other is committed to working together to carry out their bargain. This applies a fortiori in international commerce, where distance and unfamiliarity between parties make it necessary to trust the other to uphold their contractual promises. Yet, it may be argued that such expectations are unrealistic since all of commerce is motivated by self-interest. Despite this tension, it will be argued that the duty to cooperate is fundamental to international commercial contracts. This arises from the inherent nature of such contractual relationships, and is reflected in the increasing recognition of this duty in national legislation and transnational principles.
The Impact of TFL Management v Lloyds Bank and Relfo v Varsani on Requirements of Enrichment and “At the Claimant’s Expense”
Under the Battersea framework, it has been accepted that the claimant must establish that there is a connection or nexus between the (a) receipt of an enrichment by the defendant and (b) the claimant’s loss, so as to justify the unjust enrichment claim against the defendant. However, the question of whether the defendant has been enriched or the enrichment was at the claimant’s expense, is complicated, especially where it appears the enrichment was no more than an incidental benefit, or the defendant has received the enrichment only indirectly from the claimant.
Possibility of Establishing a Fact-Finding Commission for the Rohingya Crisis
While the recent attacks against the Rohingya (“Rohingya Crisis”) were most certainly conducted by the Myanmar Army, the Government (“Government”) – under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi (“Aung”) – has dismissed the Rohingya as Bengali illegals, deemed the crisis as self-inflicted, and characterised media coverage as an “iceberg of misinformation”. When the truth of events is called into question before the more difficult question of liability is engaged, it becomes, in the authors' opinion, even more pressing for a comprehensive account of the conflict to be produced. This is not only for loftier reconciliation efforts but to achieve consensus on themes like dignity and the need to eschew violence.
The missing “custom” in the customary international law: Understanding the undue restriction of states’ influence in the creation and crystallisation of law of state responsibility
The law of state responsibility occupies a key position in international law. It is not concerned with primary obligations, but is a body of general secondary rules governing 1) when a state is considered to have breached one of its international obligations, 2) the consequences flowing from the breach, 3) the locus standi of injured parties, and 4) the form of remedy sought. However the absence of primary obligations means that the developing the law of state responsibility as a set of customary international law (“CIL”) rules is extremely complicated, since states are free to determine their own specific secondary rules in their treaties.
A glimpse into the ASEAN-Hong Kong Free Trade Agreement
After close to 4 years of negotiations, the hugely anticipated ASEAN-Hong Kong Free Trade Agreement (AHKFTA) has finally been set in stone. Along with the accompanying ASEAN-Hong Kong Investment Agreement (AHKIA), the two agreements were signed on the sidelines of the 31st ASEAN summit in the Philippines.
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