Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

publishedVersion

Publication Date

9-2025

Abstract

In line with Singapore's vision of the separation of powers, the courts' duty is primarily to give effect to domestic law; the political branches take the lead in engaging with international law. A study of Singapore's interface with international law would therefore be incomplete were it to consider only the courts' role and not the political branches' model of international law as primarily a guarantor of Singapore's sovereignty and standing as a participant on the international stage. The political branches have been circumspect in engaging with international law in other areas, such as human rights, preferring a specifically Singaporean vision of rights. A symmetry emerges: the courts and political branches engage strongly with sovereignty-related norms; take other areas of international law as inspiration for developing domestic law; and take human rights law seriously even as their fidelity is ultimately to a specifically Singaporean legal framework for rights protection.

Keywords

Capital punishment, constitutional review, constitutional rights, corporal punishment, dualism, equality, human rights, international law, Singapore, statutory interpretation

Discipline

Asian Studies | Courts | International Law

Research Areas

Asian and Comparative Legal Systems

Publication

Asian Journal of International Law

First Page

1

Last Page

24

ISSN

2044-2513

Identifier

10.1017/S2044251325100751

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Copyright Owner and License

Authors-CC-BY

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1017/S2044251325100751

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