International Law as a Practical Project?

Date: Recorded on: Thursday August 7, 2025. Archive publication period: Monday November 10, 2025, Friday December 12, 2025 17:00 (JST)

Venue: Online (Archive)

This event was held in tandem with the Third Tokyo International Law Seminar on August 7.

Professor Phoebe Okowa, Professor of Public International Law at Queen Mary University of London, and a Member of the International Law Commission (ILC), discussed recent significant issues in public international law, from a practical perspective, in an interview session with Yusuke Hatakeyama. Yusuke is an associate at the Tokyo office of Nishimura & Asahi, and former Japanese diplomat, who specialises in public international law and participated in the International Law Seminar (ILS) held alongside the ILC’s annual session last year.

Program

0:00- 4:37	The background to Professor Okowa’s intellectual journey
4:38 - 7:14	The difference between working as a practitioner and as a judge at the International Court of Justice
7:15 - 19:39	ICJ’s advisory opinion on climate change
19:40 - 25:45	International Law Commission
25:46 - 29:11	The issue of “double standards”
29:12 - 33:03	Capacity building in public international law
33:04 - 34:50	Advice for future generations

Speakers

Phoebe Okowa

Professor of Public International Law at Queen Mary University of London, Member of the International Law Commission

Shimpei ISHIDO

Partner
Tokyo

Shimpei Ishido has been active in the field of international trade matters and international investment disputes for many years. He advises and represents governments and major corporations with regard to investment arbitration under ICSID, ICC, and UNCITRAL arbitration rules. He currently serves as a member of the Japanese delegation to UNCITRAL Working Group III (Investor–State Dispute Settlement Reform). He also advises the government and corporations regarding anti-dumping and countervailing measures and WTO dispute settlements proceedings concerning such trade remedy measures.

In addition, he usually provides his clients with general advice on a variety of international law issues, including investment protection, economic sanctions, government procurement, trade in services, e-commerce, sovereign and diplomatic immunities, law of the sea, and space law. His client engagement in these fields of international law includes:
i) capacity-building training on international investment law and trade in services to government officials of various states in the Asia-Pacific Region and Central Asia;
ii) advice on government procurement procedures covered by GPA and FTA/EPAs;
iii) advice on sovereign or diplomatic immunities issues concerning contracts between a foreign government/international organisation and a private entity;
iv) advice on international law issues arising from private entities' exploration of space resources on the Moon and other celestial bodies.

Before joining Nishimura & Asahi, he led, as legal counsel to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, the negotiation of Japan’s international investment agreements, including the investment and trade in services chapters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Japan–EU EPA, the ASEAN–Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership, the Japan–Australia EPA, the Japan-Mongolia EPA, and the Japan–Mozambique BIT.

He received an LLM in international law from University College London.

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