Jean Monnet Chair

EU-ASEAN Law and Relations

The European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are the world’s most advanced regional structures and represent different models of integration. Since the 1980s, the evolution of EU-ASEAN relations has provided rich lessons for the multifaceted concept of interregionalism in international law and relations. As ASEAN emerged as a priority on the EU’s Asia policy agenda after the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Commission’s 2015 “Trade for All” strategy articulates an ASEAN strategy based on individual agreements that will lead to a region-to-region framework. The recent conclusion of the EU’s trade and investment agreements with Singapore and Vietnam reinforces this building-block approach for realising the EU-ASEAN free trade agreement.

Given the assertive rise of China, the impasse of the World Trade Organization negotiations, the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated economic recession, EU-ASEAN legal frameworks and relations have become more salient on the global stage. In 2020, the two blocs elevated their “Dialogue Partnership to a Strategic Partnership”, which will enhance economic and security cooperation, as well as sustainable connectivity and development. In 2021, the EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy further emphasises the EU’s engagement with “the ASEAN-led regional architecture”, particularly given the economic and political impact of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).

This project for the Jean Monnet Chair in EU-ASEAN Law and Relations provides research-led excellence in teaching and learning at the intersection of fundamental areas of the EU’s Asia and trade policies. It offers the first systematic study of the EU’s new Indo-Pacific strategy and the EU-ASEAN Strategic Partnership from legal and political perspectives. In particular, the project will promote an understanding of EU-ASEAN economic agreements and European values with a focus on cutting-edge areas of trade and investment liberalisation, artificial intelligence and digital trade, and sustainable development including the protection of environmental and labour rights. Interdisciplinary teaching and research will examine Asian and European perspectives of EU policies and agreements and benefit academics, business professionals, judges and legal officers, and students in multiple disciplines.

About Pasha L. Hsieh

Pasha L. Hsieh is the Jean Monnet Chair Professor of Law at the Singapore Management University Yong Pung How School of Law. He received J.D. and LL.M. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where he was a Senior Editor of the University of Pennsylvania Law Review. He also holds a Ph.D. degree in Political Science from the Free University of Brussels-VUB. Prior to academia, he served as a Legal Affairs Officer at the WTO Appellate Body Secretariat and as an associate at Shearman & Sterling LLP..

Hsieh’s teaching and research focus on international economic law, public international law and Asian legal studies. His monograph, New Asian Regionalism in International Economic Law, was published in 2021 by Cambridge University Press. He also has published a co-edited book, ASEAN Law in the New Regional Economic Order: Global Trends and Shifting Paradigms (Cambridge University Press 2019). His articles have appeared in the Leiden Journal of International Law, the Journal of International Economic Law and peer-reviewed political science journals. His work has been cited by the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland, the Brookings Institution and the OECD.

Hsieh has been invited by various institutions such as the European Parliament and the Singapore Judicial College to present on trade law issues. Recently, he was re-elected as an Executive Council Member of the Society of International Economic Law. He was the Co-Chair of the American Society of International Law-Asia-Pacific Interest Group. He was also awarded the EU Jean Monnet Chair and research grants from the Korea Foundation and the Sumitomo Foundation of Japan.

About the Jean Monnet Chair

A Jean Monnet Chair is a three-year teaching and research post with a specialisation in European Union studies for university professors. Jean Monnet Chairs are awarded through a competitive process by the European Commission of the EU through its Erasmus+ program which includes Jean Monnet Actions. They are named for French diplomat Jean Monnet (1888-1979), a key figure in the founding of the European Union.