Sri Lankan-born, Harvard-educated Professor Antony Anghie has been conferred the prestigious Manley O. Hudson Medal by the American Society of International Law (ASIL) for his exceptional contributions to scholarship and achievement in international law.
Taking to Twitter, Ambassador of the United States to Sri Lanka Julie Chung congratulated Prof. Anghie on his accomplishment. “Lawyers and their commitment to rule of law support the democratic process,” she said further in her tweet.
Born in Sri Lanka and an intellectual heavyweight in the field of international law, Prof. Anghie is only the second Asian to receive this prestigious accolade.
The Law professor at the National University of Singapore (NSU) joins the ranks of legal luminaries who have received the award such as Judge Stephen Breyer, former Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court; Sir Robert Jennings and Dame Rosalyn Higgins, former Presidents of the International Court of Justice; renowned transnational law academic Prof Philip C. Jessup; and pioneering human rights scholar Prof Louis Henkin.
Prof. Anghie is a pioneering and leading authority on Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) – an important field of scholarship which studies the inequalities of the international legal order.
His work argues that the peoples of the Global South have been historically and systematically excluded from international law-making, resulting in ongoing inequality and justice.
A cornerstone of his research is his highly influential book “Imperialism, Sovereignty, and the Making of International Law” which examines the relationship between colonialism and international law. His groundbreaking work has allowed younger generations of scholars to address the enduring legacies of colonialism and imperialism.
Prof. Anghie said, “This is a very unexpected honour because my arguments were viewed as radical and challenging at the time I first made them. It was a struggle to get my book published. But I was fortunate to be able to take time over my scholarship.”
Congratulating Prof. Anghie, NUS Law Dean and Professor of Law Andrew Simester said, “The Manley O. Hudson Award is a major honour, one that recognises Tony’s unwavering commitment and outstanding contribution to international law.”
“Tony is unquestionably one of the finest academics globally in his field…The American Society of International Law has honoured a lifetime of achievement, and NUS Law is very fortunate to have Tony as one of our colleagues,” Prof Simester added.
Based at NUS Law for the past six years, Prof. Anghie has taught a variety of courses in the Public International Law curriculum, including “Current Problems in International Law”, “Developing States in a Changing World Order”, and “International Economic Law and Globalisation”. In addition, he is Head of the “Teaching and Researching International Law in Asia” Programme at the NUS Centre for International Law.
Prof. Anghie practised law in Melbourne, Australia after qualifying as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria. He then earned his Doctor of Juridical Science degree from the Harvard Law School, where he was appointed Senior Fellow in its graduate programme. He still teaches at the S.J. Quinney School of Law, University of Utah, where he previously served as the Samuel D. Thurman Professor of Law, and he was also a visiting professor at distinguished schools including Cornell Law School, the London School of Economics and Harvard Law School.
The law academic’s most recent published work is an essay on the concept of “security” in international law titled “Introduction to the Symposium on J. Benton Heath, “Making Sense of Security” published in the American Journal of International Law. Prof. Anghie is now working on the history of the rights of aliens − which explores how developments in that field are related to the emergence of international human rights law.
-with inputs from NSU
