BiblioVault

UNCLOS at 40

Essays in Honour of Ambassador Tommy Koh

Edited by Nilufer Oral and Tara Davenport

National University of Singapore Press, 2024

A collection of essays to mark the fortieth anniversary of the 1982 UNCLOS.

To commemorate forty years since the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and in honor of one of the main architects of UNCLOS, Singapore's Ambassador Tommy Koh, UNCLOS at 40 brings together law of the sea judges, scholars, and practitioners to explore a wide range of issues. It explains the reasons for the continuing endurance of UNCLOS as the foundation for the governance of the oceans and looks ahead to new challenges.

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Unequal Thailand

Aspects of Income, Wealth and Power

Edited by Pasuk Phongpaichit and Chris Baker

National University of Singapore Press, 2015

Extreme inequalities in income,wealth and power lie behind Thailand’s political turmoil. What are the sources of this inequality? Why does it persist, or even increase when the economy grows? How can it be addressed?

The contributors to this important study—Thai scholars, reformers and civil servants—shed light on the many dimensions of inequality in Thailand, looking beyond simple income measures to consider land ownership, education, finance, business structures and politics. The contributors propose a series of reforms in taxation, spending and institutional reform that can address growing inequality.

Inequality is among the biggest threats to social stability in Southeast Asia, and this close study of a key Southeast Asian country will be relevant to regional policy-makers, economists and business decision-makers, as well as students of oligarchy and inequality more generally.

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Unsilent Strangers

Music, Minorities, Co-existence, Japan

Edited by Hugh de Ferranti, Michiyo Yoneno-Reyes, and Masaya Shishikura

National University of Singapore Press, 2023

An analysis of the role of music in Japanese migrant communities.

This collection of essays on the music of migrant minorities in and from Japan examines the central role music plays in the ongoing adjustment, conciliation, and transformation of newcomers and “hosts” alike. It is the first academic text to address musical activities across a range of migrant groups in Japan––particularly those of Tokyo and its neighboring areas and the first to juxtapose such communities with those of Japanese emigrants as ethnic minorities elsewhere. It presents both archival and fieldwork-based case studies that highlight music in the dynamics of encounter and attempted identity-making, under a unifying framework of migration.

The 2019 introduction of a new “Specified Skilled Worker” visa category marked the beginning of Japan’s “new immigration era,” led by the slogan of tabunka kyosei, or “multicultural coexistence.” The contributors to this volume analyze the concept itself and the many problems around realizing this ideal through ethnographic accounts of current minorities, including South Indians, Brazilians, Nepalis, Filipinos, Iranians, and Ainu domestic migrants. This volume will be of interest to ethnomusicologists, students of the cultures of migrant communities, and those engaged with cultural change and diversity in Japan and East Asia.

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