Government to have ‘reach-out’ fund for international law research

PETALING JAYA: The government will commit a sum out of the Foreign Ministry’s RM10mil “reach-out” fund to develop a stronger discipline of international law in Malaysia.

“There has been a crying need for us to conduct research in international law,” said Foreign minister Datuk Seri Utama Dr Rais Yatim.

He told a press conference this after opening the inaugural Malaysian International Law Symposium, jointly organised and sponsored by University Malaya’s Law Faculty and the Institute of Ocean and Earth Sciences, the Asian Society of International Law and the Japan Foundation, at a hotel here yesterday.

“We do have little problems, for example, in the interpretation of human rights; what is more important is the tenets of human rights and tenets of international law ought to be the bread and butter of some of the (university) faculties in the country and also for us in the ministry.”

Earlier, he also launched the Malaysian Chapter of the Asian Society of International Law and the Malaysian Society of International Law.

Dr Rais declined to disclose the amount for research but said the Division of International Law would have substantive links with universities towards the “development of a more robust discipline in international law.”

“We have also expanded the Public Diplomacy section of the ministry in line with our policy to reach out to the people of Malaysia as well as to those outside,” he added.

-TMB