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 Universiti 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 on Thursday.
"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.
"The contribution to Universiti Malaya will be on a case to case basis. We are interested in the compilation of academic pursuits pertaining to border disputes, the law of the sea, cases under the United Nations Law of the Sea, as well to those relating to claims on islands uninhabited or inhabited by natives/ non-natives, studies pertaining to sea/trade routes.
"A sum of RM10mil was approved by the Cabinet two months ago for the ministry's reach-out programme and some of this could be harnessed and channelled towards research under international law."
He added that the Cabinet had approved the establishment of a committee to study and take the necessary steps to amend domestic laws to be in compliance with international humanitarian laws that Malaysia acceded to, in line with its international obligations.
On the Deputy Prime Minister's request to the Asia Pacific Forum on National Human Rights Institutions last week for training for government officials because many of them seemed to think international human rights laws had no relation to domestic governance, Dr Rais said the Institute for Diplomacy and International Relations had been given the task to organise some of these programmes.
"Overall we should take this opportunity to express ourselves internationally and to be well at home in the practice of international law. The time has come for the harnessing of the two. They must be inconsonance."
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