On January 19, Gary Born delivered the inaugural Kwa Geok Choo Distinguished Visitors Lecture at the National University of Singapore Law School (NUS). Mr. Born is the first appointee to the Kaw Geok Choo Distinguished Visitors Program, which was established in 2011 as a tribute to the late Madam Kwa Geok Choo—wife of former Prime Minister and Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, and an alumna of NUS.
Under the Kwa Geok Choo Distinguished Visitors Program, NUS Law School will appoint two Distinguished Visitors annually. The Distinguished Visitors are leading legal academics who will deliver public lectures on highly topical legal issues. “I am deeply honored to be named the first Kwa Geok Choo Distinguished Visitor at NUS Law School,” said Mr. Born. “This title carries with it the memory of an esteemed lawyer and the brilliant contributions of which she was a part.”
Mr. Born’s lecture, titled “A New Generation of International Adjudication,” was chaired by Attorney-General Sundaresh Menon SC and was attended by members of the Singapore judiciary, legal academics, practitioners and students. In his introductory remarks, Attorney-General Menon described Born as the world’s leading authority on international arbitration.
Mr. Born is chair of the firm’s International Arbitration Group and is widely regarded as the world's preeminent authority on international commercial arbitration and international litigation. He is the author of leading works on international arbitration, including International Commercial Arbitration (Kluwer 2009), the leading treatise in the field, which received the American Society of International Law’s Certificate of Merit for High Technical Craftsmanship and OGEMID’s Book of the Year award for 2009. He has been ranked for the past decade as one of the world's leading international arbitration practitioners and the leading arbitration practitioner in London.
(From left: former dean of NUS Law School Tan Cheng Han, WilmerHale Partner Gary Born and Dean of NUS Law School Simon Chesterman; and Singapore Attorney-General Sundaresh Menon SC with Mr. Born.)