SG-F-13: Middle Power Diplomacy — Forum of Small States and Multilateralism (1965–2026)

Document Code: SG-F-13 Full Title: Middle Power Diplomacy: Forum of Small States, Multilateral Institution-Building, and the Rules-Based International Order (1965–2026) Coverage Period: 1965–2026 Level Designation: Level 1 Anchor Primary Sources Consulted:

1. Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story (Singapore: Times Editions, 1998) and From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965–2000 (Singapore: Times Editions, 2000)
2. S. Jayakumar, Diplomacy: A Singapore Experience (Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2011)
3. S. Jayakumar and Tommy Koh, Pedra Branca: The Road to the World Court (Singapore: NUS Press, 2009)
4. Bilahari Kausikan, Singapore Is Not An Island: Views on Singapore Foreign Policy (Singapore: World Scientific, 2017)
5. Tommy Koh, The Tommy Koh Reader: Favourite Essays and Lectures (Singapore: World Scientific, 2013)
6. Kishore Mahbubani, Can Asians Think? (Singapore: Times Editions, 2001) and The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013)
7. Michael Leifer, Singapore's Foreign Policy: Coping with Vulnerability (London: Routledge, 2000)
8. Singapore Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), various sessions 1965–2025, including ministerial statements on multilateral affairs

Related Documents:

• SG-F-01: The Foundations of Singapore's Foreign Policy: Principles and Practice (1965–2026)
• SG-F-05: Singapore and Indonesia — Konfrontasi to SIJORI to Regional Partner
• SG-F-11: Singapore as Financial and Legal Mediation Hub
• SG-F-17: Tommy Koh: Fifty Years of Diplomacy (1968–2026)
• SG-F-16: Chan Heng Chee: The Washington Decade (1996–2012)
• SG-A-08: The Rule of Law as National Strategy
• SG-F-27: Singapore and the Iran-Israel-US War — Hormuz Crisis and Governance Response (2025–2026) — middle-power diplomacy in real time: ASEAN convening, FOSS coordination, and the principled-positioning playbook applied to the 2026 Middle East crisis

Version Date: 2026-03-08

---

1. Key Takeaways

• Singapore's multilateral diplomacy has been driven by a single, overriding imperative: the survival of a small state in an anarchic international system. From independence in 1965, Singapore's leaders understood that in a world where power is measured in territory, population, natural resources, and military capability, a city-state of two million people (now 5.9 million) on 581 square kilometres (now 733) had no margin for error. International law, multilateral institutions, and the rules-based international order were not abstractions for Singapore; they were the only reliable shields against the predations of larger states. As Lee Kuan Yew wrote, "For a small country like Singapore, the rule of law in international relations is essential."

• The Forum of Small States (FOSS), founded by Singapore at the United Nations in 1992 under the initiative of then-Permanent Representative Kishore Mahbubani, was Singapore's most original contribution to multilateral institution-building. FOSS brought together states with populations of ten million or fewer — eventually comprising over one hundred member states, more than half the membership of the United Nations — into an informal grouping that could coordinate positions, share information, and amplify the voices of small states in multilateral forums. FOSS was not a voting bloc; it was a platform. Its strength lay not in binding commitments but in the recognition that small states, collectively, constituted a majority of the world's nations and shared a common interest in the maintenance of international law and multilateral institutions.

• Singapore's engagement with the United Nations has been disproportionate to its size. Singapore has served on the UN Security Council twice — in 2001–2002 and again in a notable and hard-fought campaign for the 2025–2026 term. It has served on the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Human Rights Council, and numerous subsidiary bodies. Singaporean diplomats have chaired or facilitated major multilateral negotiations, including Tommy Koh's presidency of the Third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III, 1981–1982), his chairmanship of the Preparatory Committee and Main Committee of the Earth Summit (UNCED, 1990–1992), and Burhan Gafoor's chairmanship of the open-ended working group on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security (2019–2021).

• The International Court of Justice (ICJ) case concerning sovereignty over Pedra Branca, Middle Rocks, and South Ledge — Malaysia v. Singapore — was the most significant international legal proceeding in Singapore's history. Filed in 2003 by joint agreement and decided in 2008, the case required Singapore to submit its sovereignty claims to binding adjudication by the world's highest court. The ICJ's decision — awarding Pedra Branca to Singapore, Middle Rocks to Malaysia, and leaving South Ledge to the state in whose territorial waters it was located — was a vindication of Singapore's legal position and, more broadly, of the principle that territorial disputes between states could be resolved through law rather than force. S. Jayakumar, who led Singapore's legal team, described the case as "the most important legal battle Singapore has ever fought."

• Singapore's engagement with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) reflected its vital interest in the law of the sea. As a port city-state whose prosperity depended on the freedom of navigation and the security of maritime trade routes, Singapore had an existential stake in the legal regime governing the oceans. Singapore contributed to the development of ITLOS jurisprudence and was an active participant in cases involving the interpretation of UNCLOS provisions on navigation, maritime boundaries, and the marine environment.

• Climate negotiations revealed both the consistency and the limits of Singapore's multilateral engagement. Singapore's position in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiations was shaped by its unique vulnerability — a low-lying island state threatened by sea-level rise — and its unusual profile — a wealthy, industrialised economy that was also a major petrochemical refining centre with limited renewable energy options. Singapore navigated this tension by advocating for ambitious global climate action while seeking flexibility in the application of commitments to small island developing states with constrained mitigation options.

• The principle that international law protects small states has been the consistent thread in Singapore's multilateral diplomacy. This principle was not merely rhetorical; it was operationalised through sustained investment in international legal capacity, active participation in norm-setting processes, and a willingness to submit Singapore's own interests to international adjudication. Singapore's leaders understood that a small state that invoked international law to protect itself must also be willing to abide by international law when it constrained its freedom of action. This consistency — the willingness to be bound as well as to invoke — gave Singapore's advocacy for the rules-based order a credibility that many larger states, which invoked international law selectively, lacked.

• The key figures in Singapore's multilateral diplomacy — Tommy Koh, Kishore Mahbubani, S. Jayakumar, Bilahari Kausikan, and Burhan Gafoor — were not merely diplomats executing instructions from their political masters. They were intellectuals who contributed original thinking to international relations and international law. Koh's presidency of UNCLOS III and his role in the Earth Summit made him one of the most consequential multilateral diplomats of the late twentieth century. Mahbubani's writings on Asia's rise and the reform of global governance made him one of the most influential public intellectuals in international affairs. Jayakumar's leadership of Singapore's ICJ team and his subsequent reflections on diplomacy provided a rare insider account of a small state's engagement with international law. Kausikan's provocative essays on human rights, Asian values, and the limits of Western liberalism challenged prevailing orthodoxies and generated debate that continued for decades. Gafoor's work on cyber norms placed Singapore at the centre of one of the most important emerging areas of international governance.

• Singapore's multilateral diplomacy has operated under a persistent tension: the tension between principle and pragmatism. Singapore's principled commitment to the rules-based order coexisted with a pragmatic recognition that rules alone could not guarantee survival. Military capability, economic resilience, strategic relationships with major powers, and ASEAN solidarity were all necessary complements to international law. Singapore's leaders never made the mistake of believing that a favourable ICJ judgment or a UN resolution could substitute for deterrence. The rules-based order was a necessary but not sufficient condition for Singapore's security — a shield, not a fortress.

• The challenge to the rules-based order in the 2020s — from great power competition between the United States and China, from Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, from the erosion of multilateral institutions, and from the rise of transactional bilateral diplomacy — posed an existential threat to Singapore's multilateral strategy. If the international system reverted to a pure balance-of-power model in which might made right, Singapore's investment in international law and multilateral institutions would lose much of its protective value. Singapore's response was to defend the rules-based order vocally and consistently while hedging through strengthened bilateral security relationships, enhanced military capability, and deepened economic integration with multiple major powers.

---

2. The Record in Brief

Singapore's multilateral diplomacy is the story of a small state that took international law and international institutions seriously — not as matters of idealism but as matters of survival. From the moment of its unexpected independence in 1965, Singapore's leaders understood that the international system offered both peril and protection to a city-state. The peril was that larger states could coerce, invade, or economically strangle a state with no strategic depth. The protection was that international law, if sufficiently robust and widely observed, could constrain the exercise of raw power and provide small states with a degree of security that their own resources could not guarantee.

This understanding produced a multilateral diplomacy of unusual intensity and sophistication. Singapore joined the United Nations on 21 September 1965, barely six weeks after independence. Its first Permanent Representative, S. Rajaratnam — who was simultaneously Foreign Minister — used the General Assembly rostrum to declare that Singapore would be a "good citizen of the world" and would support the principles of the UN Charter. This was not empty rhetoric; it was a strategic declaration. Singapore needed the United Nations — and the principle of sovereign equality that it embodied — more than almost any other member state.

Over the following six decades, Singapore built a multilateral practice that was remarkable for its breadth, its quality, and its strategic coherence. Singaporean diplomats chaired major multilateral negotiations, sat on international courts and commissions, and contributed to the development of international law in fields ranging from the law of the sea to environmental law to cyber governance. Singapore created FOSS as a vehicle for small-state coordination, submitted its most sensitive territorial dispute to the ICJ, and championed the Singapore Convention on Mediation as a contribution to international commercial law.

The consistency of Singapore's multilateral engagement was its most notable feature. Over six decades, through changes of government, shifts in the international environment, and the rise and decline of various multilateral initiatives, Singapore maintained its core position: that the rules-based international order was the best available framework for protecting the interests of small states, and that Singapore had both a duty and an interest in strengthening that order. This consistency was rooted in the unchanging reality of Singapore's structural vulnerability — a reality that no amount of economic success, military investment, or diplomatic skill could alter.

The challenges to this strategy were real and growing. The erosion of multilateral institutions, the rise of great power competition, and the increasing willingness of major powers to act outside the framework of international law all threatened the rules-based order on which Singapore depended. Singapore's response — to defend the order vocally, to invest in the institutions that sustained it, and to hedge through bilateral relationships and national resilience — was characteristically pragmatic. But the fundamental question remained: could a rules-based international order survive in an era of great power revisionism? Singapore's security depended, more than that of almost any other state, on the answer being yes.

---

3. Timeline of Key Events

---

4. Background and Context

The Small State Predicament

Singapore's multilateral diplomacy must be understood against the backdrop of a problem as old as the Peloponnesian War: the vulnerability of small states in an international system dominated by great powers. Thucydides recorded the Athenian envoys' declaration to the Melians: "The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." The entire edifice of Singapore's multilateral diplomacy was built to ensure that this maxim did not apply to Singapore.

The classical realist tradition in international relations holds that the international system is anarchic — that there is no world government, no global police force, and no reliable mechanism for enforcing international law against powerful states. In such a system, the strong prevail and the weak survive only by allying with the strong or by making themselves useful to them. Small states, on this view, are inherently vulnerable and must either bandwagon with a great power protector or accept their subordination.

Singapore's leaders, while deeply pragmatic and fully aware of the realities of power, rejected the pure realist prescription. They understood that Singapore could not rely on any single great power for its security — the withdrawal of British military forces in 1971 had taught that lesson — and that bandwagoning with any one power would compromise Singapore's relationships with others. Instead, they pursued a strategy that combined realist elements (military capability, strategic relationships with multiple major powers) with liberal internationalist elements (support for international law, multilateral institutions, and the rules-based order). This combination — which Bilahari Kausikan has described as "principled pragmatism" — was the intellectual foundation of Singapore's multilateral diplomacy.

The United Nations as Shield

The United Nations occupied a central place in Singapore's multilateral strategy — not because Singapore's leaders harboured illusions about the UN's effectiveness, but because the UN embodied the principle of sovereign equality that was Singapore's first line of defence. Article 2(1) of the UN Charter declares that "the Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members." This principle — that Singapore's sovereignty was, in law, equal to that of China, India, Indonesia, or the United States — was the legal foundation on which Singapore's independence rested.

Singapore's leaders understood that sovereign equality was a legal fiction in the sense that it did not correspond to the reality of power. But they also understood that legal fictions have consequences — that the principle of sovereign equality, embodied in the UN Charter and reinforced by sixty years of state practice, created norms and expectations that constrained the behaviour of even powerful states. A world in which sovereignty was merely a function of power was a world in which Singapore could be absorbed, coerced, or dismembered at will. A world in which sovereignty was a legal right, protected by international law and institutional practice, was a world in which Singapore could survive and prosper.

The ASEAN Connection

Singapore's multilateral diplomacy at the global level was complemented and reinforced by its regional multilateralism through ASEAN. Founded in 1967 by Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand, ASEAN provided Singapore with a regional identity, a collective voice, and a framework for managing relations with its immediate neighbours. ASEAN's principles — sovereignty, non-interference, consensus decision-making, and the peaceful settlement of disputes — were congruent with Singapore's multilateral interests.

ASEAN also served as a force multiplier for Singapore's multilateral diplomacy. When Singapore spoke at the United Nations or in other multilateral forums, it spoke not merely as a city-state of six million people but as a member of a regional organisation comprising ten states, 680 million people, and a combined GDP exceeding USD 3.6 trillion. ASEAN's collective weight gave Singapore's positions greater resonance than Singapore's individual weight alone could provide.

The relationship between Singapore's ASEAN multilateralism and its UN multilateralism was not always seamless. ASEAN's principle of non-interference sometimes conflicted with Singapore's support for universal human rights norms at the United Nations. ASEAN's consensus-based decision-making sometimes constrained Singapore's ability to take strong positions on issues where ASEAN members were divided. But on the fundamental question — the importance of the rules-based international order — ASEAN and Singapore's global multilateralism were aligned.

---

5. The Primary Record

The Forum of Small States (1992–2026)

The Forum of Small States was born from a simple observation: small states constituted a majority of the United Nations membership but had no collective mechanism for coordination. The observation was Kishore Mahbubani's. As Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1984 to 1989 (and again from 1998 to 2004), Mahbubani recognised that the challenges facing small states — vulnerability to coercion, limited diplomatic capacity, underrepresentation in multilateral decision-making — were shared across regions, cultures, and income levels. A Pacific island state, a Caribbean nation, a European microstate, and a Southeast Asian city-state all faced the same structural disadvantage in a system designed by and for great powers.

FOSS was established in 1992 with an initial membership of sixteen states. Singapore served as the convening state, hosting meetings, providing secretariat support, and bearing the administrative costs. The membership criterion was simple: a population of ten million or fewer. This threshold was deliberately chosen to be inclusive — it brought together states as diverse as Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, Fiji and Bhutan, Singapore and Brunei — while excluding the medium powers that could be expected to pursue their own multilateral agendas.

The genius of FOSS was its informality. It was not a treaty-based organisation. It had no charter, no secretariat (beyond Singapore's support), no binding resolutions, and no permanent staff. It was, in Mahbubani's phrase, a "network" rather than an "institution." This informality was deliberate: a formal organisation would have been cumbersome to establish, expensive to maintain, and potentially divisive (as members disagreed on specific issues). An informal forum could serve its purpose — information-sharing, consultation, and occasional coordination — without the overhead of institutional structure.

FOSS's activities expanded over the decades. Regular meetings at ministerial and ambassadorial level provided a platform for small states to discuss issues of common concern. FOSS-sponsored events at the United Nations — panels, seminars, and side meetings — raised the visibility of small-state perspectives on topics including climate change, sustainable development, peacekeeping, and cyber governance. FOSS also provided a venue for small states to discuss and coordinate their approaches to Security Council elections, General Assembly votes, and multilateral negotiations.

By 2025, FOSS comprised over one hundred member states — more than half the membership of the United Nations. This growth, from sixteen to over one hundred in three decades, reflected both the proliferation of small states in the international system and the perceived value of the forum. Singapore remained the convening state, and FOSS remained one of Singapore's most distinctive contributions to multilateral institution-building.

The limitations of FOSS were the limitations of informality. It could not compel its members to take common positions. It could not mobilise collective action on issues where members' interests diverged. It could not prevent a great power from coercing a small state; it could only provide a platform on which the coercion could be discussed and, perhaps, politically costly. These limitations were real, but they did not diminish FOSS's value as a mechanism for coordination and consciousness-raising. In a world where the voices of small states were routinely drowned out by those of great powers, FOSS provided a microphone — modest, but audible.

Singapore on the Security Council (2001–2002)

Singapore's election to the UN Security Council for the 2001–2002 term was the product of a diplomatic campaign that took years of groundwork. The campaign required securing the votes of the Asian group of states, which involved negotiations, trade-offs, and the cultivation of relationships across the continent. Singapore's candidacy was supported by its track record of constructive multilateral engagement, its reputation for competence and integrity, and its promise to represent the interests of small states on the Council.

The timing proved extraordinary. Singapore assumed the presidency of the Security Council in September 2001. On 11 September, the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon transformed international security. Singapore's Permanent Representative, Kishore Mahbubani, chaired the emergency meetings that followed. The Security Council adopted Resolution 1368 on 12 September, condemning the attacks and recognising the right of self-defence, and Resolution 1373 on 28 September, establishing the Counter-Terrorism Committee and imposing obligations on all states to combat terrorism. Singapore's presidency during this period of crisis demonstrated that a small state could play a meaningful role in international security governance, even at the most consequential moments.

During its two-year term, Singapore sought to advance several priorities: the interests of small states, the rule of law in international relations, and the effective functioning of the Security Council. Singapore's representatives participated actively in deliberations on Afghanistan, the Middle East, and counter-terrorism. They also sought to make the Council's procedures more transparent and inclusive, reflecting the frustration of non-members with the Council's often opaque decision-making.

Singapore's second campaign for a Security Council seat, for the 2025–2026 term, was conducted in a very different international environment. The geopolitical landscape had been transformed by the US-China strategic competition, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and the erosion of the multilateral consensus that had characterised the post-Cold War era. Singapore's candidacy was framed as a contribution to the maintenance of the rules-based order at a time when that order was under unprecedented strain.

The Pedra Branca Case at the ICJ (2003–2008)

The sovereignty dispute over Pedra Branca (Batu Puteh in Malay), Middle Rocks, and South Ledge was the most significant international legal proceeding in Singapore's history. The dispute concerned sovereignty over a small rocky island in the eastern entrance to the Singapore Strait, on which the Horsburgh Lighthouse — one of the oldest lighthouses in Southeast Asia, built in 1851 — stood. Singapore had operated the lighthouse continuously since the colonial era. Malaysia claimed sovereignty on the basis of the original sovereignty of the Sultanate of Johor over the surrounding waters and islands.

The dispute was referred to the ICJ by Special Agreement between Malaysia and Singapore in 2003. This was itself a significant achievement: both states agreed to submit their claims to binding adjudication, accepting in advance that they would be bound by the Court's decision regardless of the outcome. The decision to go to the ICJ rather than to seek a political or diplomatic resolution reflected Singapore's confidence in its legal case and its principled commitment to the judicial settlement of international disputes.

Singapore assembled a formidable legal team, led by S. Jayakumar (who had served as Foreign Minister, Home Affairs Minister, and Deputy Prime Minister) and supported by leading international lawyers including Ian Brownlie (until his death in 2010), Alain Pellet, and Rodman Bundy. The case required exhaustive research into colonial-era archives, diplomatic correspondence, maps, and administrative records spanning more than a century and a half. Singapore's position was that it had acquired sovereignty over Pedra Branca through a combination of original title (as successor to the British Crown, which had built the lighthouse with the acquiescence of the Sultan of Johor) and subsequent conduct (Singapore's continuous administration, maintenance, and exercise of sovereign authority over the island for over 150 years).

The ICJ delivered its judgment on 23 May 2008. By twelve votes to four, the Court found that sovereignty over Pedra Branca belonged to Singapore. The Court reasoned that while the original title to Pedra Branca had belonged to the Sultan of Johor, sovereignty had passed to Singapore (through the British Crown and subsequently through Singapore's independence) as a result of the conduct of the parties — specifically, Singapore's continuous exercise of sovereign authority over the island and Malaysia's failure to protest or assert its own sovereignty. By fifteen votes to one, the Court found that sovereignty over Middle Rocks belonged to Malaysia. The Court left the question of South Ledge to be determined by the state in whose territorial waters it fell — a question that depended on the delimitation of the maritime boundary between the two states.

The judgment was received in Singapore with relief and quiet satisfaction. Jayakumar, who had devoted years of his professional life to the case, described it as "a validation of Singapore's meticulous approach to international law." The case established a precedent — that Singapore was willing to submit its most vital interests to international adjudication — that reinforced Singapore's credibility as an advocate for the rules-based order.

Malaysia filed an application for revision of the judgment in 2017, invoking new evidence that it claimed had not been available at the time of the original proceedings. The ICJ discontinued the case in 2018 after Malaysia withdrew its application, leaving the 2008 judgment intact.

Climate Diplomacy

Singapore's engagement with the international climate regime illustrated the complexity of multilateral diplomacy for a small state with an unusual profile. Singapore was simultaneously vulnerable to climate change (as a low-lying island state threatened by sea-level rise) and constrained in its mitigation options (as a small, densely built city-state with limited land for renewable energy, no hydropower potential, and a significant petrochemical refining industry).

This dual identity — climate-vulnerable and carbon-constrained — shaped Singapore's negotiating position. Singapore supported ambitious global climate action, recognising that sea-level rise posed an existential threat to the city-state. At the same time, Singapore sought flexibility in the application of climate commitments, arguing that its unique circumstances — its small size, its lack of renewable energy alternatives, its dependence on natural gas for electricity generation — required tailored approaches rather than one-size-fits-all targets.

Singapore's Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement committed to reducing emissions intensity by 36 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and to stabilise emissions with the aim of peaking around 2030. In 2020, Singapore submitted its Long-Term Low-Emissions Development Strategy, aspiring to achieve net-zero emissions "as soon as viable in the second half of the century." The Singapore Green Plan 2030, launched in 2021, set out concrete strategies for greening the economy, including the deployment of solar energy, the promotion of electric vehicles, the greening of buildings, and the development of a carbon trading and services hub.

Singapore's role in the climate negotiations extended beyond its own commitments. Singaporean diplomats facilitated discussions on carbon markets, climate finance, and adaptation — issues on which Singapore's technical expertise and reputation for competence gave it influence disproportionate to its emissions. Singapore also used the climate negotiations as a platform for advancing its broader multilateral agenda, including the interests of small states and the importance of a rules-based framework for climate governance.

The ITLOS Cases and Maritime Governance

Singapore's engagement with the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea reflected its existential interest in the legal regime governing the oceans. As a port city-state through which approximately one-quarter of the world's seaborne trade passed, Singapore's prosperity depended directly on the freedom of navigation, the security of sea lanes, and the predictability of maritime legal rules. Any legal development that restricted transit passage through straits, extended coastal state authority over adjacent waters in ways that impeded navigation, or weakened the enforcement mechanisms of UNCLOS was a direct threat to Singapore's economic model.

Singapore was among the earliest signatories and ratifiers of UNCLOS, and it contributed actively to the development of the Convention's institutions, including ITLOS, the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf, and the International Seabed Authority. Tommy Koh's presidency of UNCLOS III gave Singapore a unique institutional connection to the Convention, and subsequent Singaporean lawyers and diplomats maintained this engagement through participation in ITLOS proceedings, contributions to the International Law Commission's work on the law of the sea, and involvement in arbitral proceedings under UNCLOS Annex VII.

Singapore's interest in ITLOS was both systemic and specific. Systemically, Singapore had an interest in ensuring that ITLOS developed a jurisprudence that was consistent with the freedom of navigation and the protection of the rights of flag states and port states. Specifically, Singapore was concerned with issues including the delimitation of maritime boundaries in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore, the legal regime for straits used for international navigation (Part III of UNCLOS), and the rights of port states to exercise jurisdiction over foreign vessels.

The land reclamation case — Malaysia v. Singapore, submitted to ITLOS in 2003 — was particularly significant. Malaysia sought provisional measures to halt Singapore's land reclamation activities in the Johor Strait, arguing that the reclamation was causing environmental harm and encroaching on Malaysian territorial waters. ITLOS issued an order on 8 October 2003 requiring both parties to establish a group of independent experts to study the environmental effects of the reclamation and to cooperate in sharing information. The case was subsequently settled by agreement between the parties, with Singapore modifying certain aspects of its reclamation programme. The ITLOS proceedings demonstrated both the utility of international legal mechanisms for managing bilateral disputes and the constraints that such mechanisms could impose on Singapore's sovereign activities.

Singapore also participated as an interested party in advisory proceedings and contentious cases at ITLOS that affected the interpretation of UNCLOS provisions on navigation, marine environmental protection, and fisheries management. Its interventions were consistently aimed at preserving the freedom of navigation and limiting the extension of coastal state jurisdiction in ways that could impede maritime trade.

Cyber Governance and Emerging Norms

Singapore's engagement with the emerging governance of cyberspace — the development of norms, rules, and principles governing state behaviour in the digital domain — represented a new frontier for its multilateral diplomacy. The appointment of Ambassador Burhan Gafoor as chair of the United Nations Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) on developments in the field of information and telecommunications in the context of international security (2019–2021) placed Singapore at the centre of one of the most consequential multilateral processes of the decade.

The OEWG was established to develop a framework of responsible state behaviour in cyberspace — rules governing cyber espionage, cyber warfare, and the protection of critical infrastructure. The negotiations were complicated by fundamental disagreements between Western states (led by the United States and its allies, who favoured applying existing international law to cyberspace) and authoritarian states (led by Russia and China, who sought a new treaty regime that would legitimise state control over the internet within national borders).

Gafoor's achievement was to secure a consensus report from the OEWG in March 2021 — a report agreed by all participating states, including the United States, Russia, and China. The report affirmed that international law applied to cyberspace, endorsed a set of voluntary norms for responsible state behaviour, and recommended confidence-building measures and capacity-building programmes. The consensus was fragile and incomplete — the fundamental disagreements remained unresolved — but the fact that consensus was achieved at all, on a topic where positions were deeply polarised, was a diplomatic accomplishment of the first order.

Singapore's suitability for this role was not accidental. Its position as a digitally advanced, strategically located, and politically neutral state made it acceptable to all parties. Its government's investment in cybersecurity — including the establishment of the Cyber Security Agency (CSA) and the hosting of the Singapore International Cyber Week — gave it technical credibility. And its diplomatic tradition of patient, inclusive facilitation made it an effective chair.

The Ukraine Crisis and Singapore's Response

Russia's invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 posed a fundamental challenge to the rules-based international order that Singapore had spent six decades defending. The invasion — an unprovoked military attack by a permanent member of the Security Council against a sovereign state — violated the most basic norms of international law: the prohibition on the use of force, the principle of territorial integrity, and the principle of sovereign equality.

Singapore's response was swift and unequivocal. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan condemned the invasion in the strongest terms. Singapore voted for the UN General Assembly resolution demanding Russia's withdrawal. And — most significantly — Singapore imposed sanctions on Russia, restricting the export of items that could be used for military purposes and blocking certain Russian banks and financial transactions.

The imposition of sanctions was remarkable for Singapore. Singapore had never previously imposed unilateral sanctions outside of a UN Security Council mandate. Its tradition was to act multilaterally, through the UN or ASEAN, rather than unilaterally. The decision to impose sanctions on Russia was driven by the recognition that the invasion of Ukraine was not merely a European conflict but a systemic threat to the international order on which Singapore's survival depended. As Vivian Balakrishnan told Parliament: "If we accept that Russia can attack Ukraine with impunity, the rules-based international order that has kept Singapore safe since independence will be fundamentally undermined."

The Ukraine response demonstrated the depth of Singapore's commitment to the rules-based order. It also demonstrated the limits of that commitment: Singapore's sanctions were carefully targeted to minimise economic disruption, and Singapore did not break diplomatic relations with Russia. The response was principled but pragmatic — consistent with Singapore's approach to every multilateral challenge since independence.

---

6. Key Figures

Tommy Koh (b. 1937). Ambassador-at-Large and Singapore's most distinguished multilateral diplomat. His presidency of UNCLOS III (1981–1982), which produced the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea — described as "a constitution for the oceans" — was one of the most consequential acts of multilateral leadership of the twentieth century. His chairmanship of the Preparatory Committee and Main Committee of the Earth Summit (UNCED, 1990–1992) added environmental law to his legacy. His appointment to the International Law Commission and his continued engagement with international legal issues through the 2020s made him a figure of unique standing in both Singapore's diplomatic history and in the broader history of international law. (See SG-F-17 for a detailed profile.)

Kishore Mahbubani (b. 1948). Diplomat, academic, and public intellectual. As Permanent Representative to the United Nations (1984–1989, 1998–2004), he founded FOSS and served as President of the Security Council during the September 2001 crisis. As Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (2004–2017), he became one of the most widely read commentators on Asia's rise and the future of global governance. His books — including Can Asians Think?, The Great Convergence, and Has the West Lost It? — challenged Western assumptions about the universality of Western values and the permanence of Western global leadership. His public disagreements with Western governments and media — and, occasionally, with aspects of Singapore's own policies — made him a controversial but indispensable figure.

S. Jayakumar (b. 1939). Diplomat, lawyer, politician, and Professor of Law. As Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations (1971–1974, 1974–1980), he was deeply involved in the UNCLOS negotiations. As Foreign Minister (1994–2004) and subsequently as Deputy Prime Minister, he shaped Singapore's multilateral diplomacy at the highest level. His leadership of Singapore's legal team in the Pedra Branca case was the capstone of a career devoted to the intersection of law and diplomacy. His memoirs, Diplomacy: A Singapore Experience, remain the most authoritative insider account of Singapore's foreign policy.

Bilahari Kausikan (b. 1954). Ambassador-at-Large and former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Kausikan was Singapore's most provocative diplomatic voice — a master of the pointed essay and the uncomfortable argument. His writings on the limits of Western human rights universalism, the nature of ASEAN, and the strategic challenges facing small states were widely read and frequently debated. His essay "Governance That Works" — which argued that democracy, human rights, and good governance were not synonymous and that Singapore's model of authoritarian governance with the rule of law was a legitimate alternative to Western liberal democracy — provoked sustained controversy but also forced a reckoning with assumptions that many in the West had taken for granted.

Burhan Gafoor (b. 1966). Ambassador to the United Nations and subsequently Permanent Representative to the UN in Geneva. His chairmanship of the OEWG on ICT security (2019–2021) was a significant achievement in a new and contested area of multilateral governance. His ability to forge consensus among states with fundamentally different views on the governance of cyberspace demonstrated a diplomatic skill that placed him in the tradition of Koh and Jayakumar.

Vivian Balakrishnan (b. 1961). Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2015. His stewardship of Singapore's foreign policy during a period of intensifying great power competition, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Ukraine crisis required a combination of principled advocacy and pragmatic flexibility. His parliamentary statements on the Ukraine invasion — clear, forceful, and grounded in Singapore's existential interest in the rules-based order — were among the most significant foreign policy declarations in Singapore's recent history.

---

7. Stories and Anecdotes

The founding of FOSS in 1992 has a characteristically Mahbubani-esque origin story. As Permanent Representative, Mahbubani observed that the ambassadors of small states at the United Nations often felt isolated and ignored — they lacked the staff to cover all the meetings, the political weight to influence outcomes, and the networks to access information. He convened an informal gathering of small-state ambassadors in 1992 and proposed a simple idea: meet regularly, share information, and coordinate where possible. The initial response was cautious — some ambassadors were sceptical that such a group could achieve anything, and others worried about offending their larger neighbours. But the idea caught on. As one founding member later recalled: "We realised that we were all in the same boat, and it helped just to know that we were not alone."

The Pedra Branca case produced one of the most meticulous archival research efforts in Singapore's administrative history. The legal team, led by Jayakumar, combed through colonial-era records in archives in Singapore, London, The Hague, and Kuala Lumpur. They traced the history of the Horsburgh Lighthouse from its construction in 1851, documenting every act of sovereignty — every flag raised, every inspector sent, every licence issued, every repair ordered — that Singapore (and before it, the British Crown) had exercised over Pedra Branca. The result was a legal submission of extraordinary thoroughness. Jayakumar later wrote that the case required "more than four years of painstaking research" and produced thousands of pages of documentation. The ICJ's judgment acknowledged the quality of both sides' submissions, but the thoroughness of Singapore's documentary record was widely regarded as a decisive factor.

Singapore's presidency of the Security Council in September 2001 produced a moment of diplomatic surreality. On the evening of 11 September 2001 (New York time), as news of the attacks reached the United Nations, Ambassador Mahbubani was chairing a Security Council session on an entirely unrelated topic. The session was suspended as members absorbed the news. Mahbubani then had to convene the emergency consultations that would lead to Resolution 1368. He later reflected on the irony that Singapore — a city-state of four million people with no military capacity to project force beyond its borders — found itself chairing the world's most powerful security body at the moment of the most devastating terrorist attack in history. The experience reinforced Singapore's conviction that small states could play a meaningful role in international security governance — and that the Security Council needed the perspectives of small states precisely because small states had no geopolitical axes to grind.

The Singapore sanctions on Russia in 2022 were preceded by intense internal deliberation. Singapore had never imposed unilateral sanctions before. The decision required weighing the risk of economic retaliation from Russia (modest, given the limited bilateral economic relationship), the risk of setting a precedent that Singapore would impose sanctions outside UN mandates (significant, given Singapore's tradition of multilateral action), and the imperative of defending the principle that large states could not invade small states with impunity (existential). The decision to impose sanctions was ultimately driven by the recognition that silence would be more costly than action — that if Singapore, which had spent sixty years advocating for the rules-based order, failed to act when that order was most flagrantly violated, its credibility as an advocate for international law would be fatally compromised.

---

8. Arguments and Rhetoric

The intellectual foundation of Singapore's multilateral diplomacy rests on three propositions, each of which has been articulated, defended, and refined by successive generations of Singapore's diplomatic leadership.

Proposition One: International law is the great equaliser. This proposition holds that in the absence of international law, the international system would be a pure power competition in which small states would be at the mercy of large ones. International law — including the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, non-intervention, and the peaceful settlement of disputes — constrains the exercise of raw power and provides small states with legal protections that their material capabilities cannot provide. This proposition has been articulated most forcefully by Lee Kuan Yew and S. Jayakumar, and it is the philosophical core of Singapore's multilateral engagement.

Proposition Two: Multilateral institutions are worth investing in, even when they are imperfect. This proposition acknowledges that the United Nations, ASEAN, and other multilateral institutions are flawed, slow, and often ineffective. But it argues that the alternative — a world without multilateral institutions, in which bilateral power dynamics determine outcomes — would be far worse for small states. Multilateral institutions provide platforms for small states to be heard, frameworks for the collective management of global problems, and mechanisms (however imperfect) for holding powerful states accountable. This proposition has been most clearly articulated by Tommy Koh and Kishore Mahbubani.

Proposition Three: Singapore must practise what it preaches. This proposition holds that Singapore's advocacy for the rules-based order must be backed by its own willingness to be bound by international law, even when doing so is inconvenient or costly. The decision to submit the Pedra Branca dispute to the ICJ — accepting the risk that the judgment might go against Singapore — was the supreme expression of this proposition. Singapore's leaders understood that a state which invoked international law to protect itself but refused to submit to international law when its own interests were at stake would forfeit the moral authority on which its advocacy depended.

These propositions have been challenged, both from within and from without. The internal challenge comes from those who argue that Singapore's investment in multilateral institutions is disproportionate to the returns — that the United Nations is increasingly irrelevant, that ASEAN is ineffective, and that Singapore should focus its diplomatic resources on bilateral relationships with major powers. The external challenge comes from great powers — particularly China and Russia — which argue that the rules-based order is a Western construct designed to perpetuate Western dominance, and that the true principles of international relations are sovereignty, non-interference, and power.

Singapore's response to both challenges has been characteristically pragmatic. To the internal critics, Singapore's leaders have argued that multilateral institutions, however imperfect, remain the best available mechanism for protecting small-state interests, and that the cost of maintaining them is far less than the cost of their absence. To the external critics, Singapore has argued that the rules-based order, whatever its origins, serves the interests of all states — including developing states and non-Western states — and that the alternative is not a new, more equitable order but a return to the law of the jungle.

Bilahari Kausikan has added a characteristic provocation to this debate. He has argued that Singapore's commitment to the rules-based order is not idealistic but intensely self-interested — that Singapore supports international law not because it believes in the inherent moral superiority of rules but because rules benefit small states disproportionately. "We are not naïve," Kausikan has written. "We do not believe that all states will always follow the rules. But we believe that a world with rules is better for us than a world without them."

---

9. The Contested Record

Several aspects of Singapore's multilateral diplomacy are contested or subject to differing interpretations.

The sincerity of Singapore's commitment to multilateralism. Critics, particularly in academia and civil society, have questioned whether Singapore's commitment to the rules-based order is genuine or merely instrumental. They point to Singapore's selective engagement with international human rights mechanisms — ratifying some human rights treaties but not others, engaging with the Universal Periodic Review but rejecting specific recommendations, maintaining the death penalty despite international criticism. They argue that Singapore invokes international law when it suits Singapore's interests but resists it when it does not. Defenders of Singapore's position respond that no state accepts all international norms uncritically, and that Singapore's selective engagement is consistent with a principled position on sovereignty and non-interference.

The effectiveness of FOSS. Sceptics have questioned whether FOSS has achieved any concrete results beyond providing a networking opportunity for small-state diplomats. They point out that FOSS has not prevented any great power from acting unilaterally, has not secured any specific concession for small states in multilateral negotiations, and has not changed the fundamental power dynamics of the international system. Defenders respond that FOSS's value lies precisely in its informality — that it provides a platform for coordination and consciousness-raising that would not exist otherwise, and that measuring its effectiveness by the standards of formal institutions misses the point.

The Pedra Branca case and its implications. While the ICJ's judgment was broadly favourable to Singapore, the decision to refer the dispute to the Court was not without risk, and some commentators have questioned whether Singapore should have sought a diplomatic rather than a judicial resolution. The counter-argument — advanced forcefully by Jayakumar — is that a diplomatic resolution would have required political compromises that might have undermined Singapore's sovereignty claim, and that the judicial route, while risky, was consistent with Singapore's principled commitment to the rule of law in international relations.

Singapore's response to the Ukraine invasion. Singapore's decision to impose sanctions on Russia was praised by Western governments and media but raised questions in some quarters. Some commentators in the Global South questioned whether Singapore would have responded with equal vigour to violations of international law by Western states — noting that Singapore did not impose sanctions on the United States following the invasion of Iraq in 2003, which many international lawyers considered a violation of international law. Singapore's response to this criticism was that the situations were not identical and that Singapore's sanctions on Russia were driven by the specific character of the invasion — an unprovoked attack on a sovereign state by a permanent member of the Security Council — rather than by a general policy of sanctioning all violations of international law.

The tension between multilateralism and bilateral pragmatism. Singapore's simultaneous commitment to multilateral principles and bilateral pragmatism has sometimes produced tensions. Singapore's close security relationship with the United States, its growing economic dependence on China, and its strategic relationships with India and Japan all require bilateral management that may sometimes conflict with multilateral principles. Singapore has managed these tensions with considerable skill, but the management is becoming more difficult as US-China competition intensifies and the pressure to "choose sides" grows.

---

10. Outcomes and Evidence

The evidence for the effectiveness of Singapore's multilateral diplomacy is mixed but, on balance, positive.

FOSS's growth. From sixteen founding members in 1992 to over one hundred members by 2025, FOSS has become the largest grouping of states at the United Nations outside the formal regional groups. Its growth is itself evidence of the perceived value of the forum — states do not join and remain in organisations that provide no benefit.

The Pedra Branca judgment. The ICJ's award of sovereignty over Pedra Branca to Singapore was a concrete, measurable outcome of Singapore's multilateral engagement. The judgment resolved a decades-old territorial dispute in Singapore's favour and vindicated the principle that territorial disputes could be resolved through law rather than power.

The Singapore Convention on Mediation. The Convention's adoption by the UN General Assembly without a vote, its signing by forty-six countries on the first day, and its naming after Singapore were tangible achievements of Singapore's multilateral diplomacy. The Convention placed Singapore at the centre of international lawmaking in the field of dispute resolution.

Security Council service. Singapore's service on the Security Council in 2001–2002, including its presidency during the September 2001 crisis, demonstrated that a small state could play a meaningful role in international security governance. Singapore's election to a second term for 2025–2026 confirmed that the international community continued to value Singapore's contribution.

The OEWG consensus. Burhan Gafoor's achievement in securing a consensus report from the OEWG on ICT security was a significant diplomatic accomplishment in a field where consensus had previously seemed impossible.

International rankings and assessments. Singapore consistently ranks among the top countries in the world for rule of law, judicial quality, and governance effectiveness — rankings that reflect, in part, the credibility that its multilateral engagement has built.

The limits of evidence. It is impossible to measure the counterfactual — to know what would have happened to Singapore in a world without the rules-based international order. Singapore's multilateral diplomacy is, in a sense, an insurance policy: its value is most evident in the crises it has helped to prevent rather than in the outcomes it has directly achieved. The fact that Singapore has survived and prospered as an independent state for six decades — in a region where territorial disputes, ethnic conflicts, and great power competition have been constant — is, at minimum, consistent with the thesis that multilateral engagement has contributed to Singapore's security.

---

11. What the Archive Has Not Yet Revealed

Several important questions about Singapore's multilateral diplomacy remain unanswered or insufficiently documented.

The internal deliberations on the Pedra Branca referral. The decision to refer the Pedra Branca dispute to the ICJ was one of the most consequential decisions in Singapore's diplomatic history. The internal deliberations — the assessment of legal risks, the consideration of alternative approaches, the political discussions that preceded the Special Agreement with Malaysia — have been only partially documented in Jayakumar's memoirs. A full account would illuminate how Singapore's leaders weighed legal risk against diplomatic principle.

The FOSS files. The internal records of FOSS — the minutes of meetings, the internal communications, the assessments of the forum's effectiveness — are not publicly available. These records would reveal how FOSS operated in practice, how decisions were made (or not made), and how Singapore managed the diverse interests of over one hundred member states.

The sanctions decision-making process. The internal deliberations that led to Singapore's decision to impose sanctions on Russia in 2022 — including the assessment of economic risks, the consultation with ASEAN partners, and the legal analysis of Singapore's authority to impose unilateral sanctions — have not been publicly documented. These deliberations would illuminate how Singapore's foreign policy decision-making process operates under crisis conditions.

Singapore's Security Council diplomacy. The detailed record of Singapore's deliberations and negotiations during its Security Council terms — including its positions on specific resolutions, its behind-the-scenes negotiations, and its assessment of the Council's effectiveness — has not been fully disclosed. The memoirs and speeches of Singapore's Permanent Representatives provide some insights, but a comprehensive account remains to be written.

The climate negotiation strategy. Singapore's negotiating positions in the UNFCCC process — including its internal deliberations on emissions targets, its assessment of the trade-offs between economic growth and climate commitments, and its coordination with other small island states — have not been comprehensively documented in the public record.

Singapore's engagement with international human rights mechanisms. Singapore's selective engagement with the international human rights system — ratifying some treaties but not others, accepting some Universal Periodic Review recommendations but rejecting others — reflects a considered policy position that has not been fully explained in public. The internal reasoning behind these decisions would illuminate the tension between Singapore's commitment to multilateral institutions and its resistance to certain aspects of the international human rights regime.

---

12. Spiral Expansion Triggers / Spiral Index

Level 2 Expansions (Detailed Policy and Practice Studies)

Level 3 Expansions (Profiles and Episodes)

Level 4 Expansions (Foundational and Conceptual)

---

13. Sources and References

Primary Sources

Treaties and Conventions:

• Charter of the United Nations, 1945.
• United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, 1982.
• United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 1992, and the Paris Agreement, 2015.
• United Nations Convention on International Settlement Agreements Resulting from Mediation (Singapore Convention on Mediation), 2019.
• Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements, 2005.

International Court of Justice:

• Sovereignty over Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks and South Ledge (Malaysia/Singapore), Judgment, I.C.J. Reports 2008, p. 12.
• Application for Revision of the Judgment of 23 May 2008 in the Case concerning Sovereignty over Pedra Branca/Pulau Batu Puteh, Middle Rocks and South Ledge (Malaysia/Singapore) (Malaysia v. Singapore), discontinued 2018.

UN Security Council Resolutions:

• Resolution 1368 (2001), 12 September 2001.
• Resolution 1373 (2001), 28 September 2001.

Parliamentary Debates (Hansard):

• Ministerial Statement on Singapore's Condemnation of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine, 28 February 2022.
• Parliamentary Debate on Singapore's Sanctions on Russia, March 2022.
• Various ministerial statements on multilateral affairs, climate negotiations, and international law.

Memoirs, Interviews, and Autobiographies

Lee Kuan Yew, The Singapore Story: Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew (Singapore: Times Editions, 1998).

Lee Kuan Yew, From Third World to First: The Singapore Story 1965–2000 (Singapore: Times Editions, 2000).

S. Jayakumar, Diplomacy: A Singapore Experience (Singapore: Straits Times Press, 2011).

S. Jayakumar and Tommy Koh, Pedra Branca: The Road to the World Court (Singapore: NUS Press, 2009).

Tommy Koh, The Tommy Koh Reader: Favourite Essays and Lectures (Singapore: World Scientific, 2013).

Kishore Mahbubani, Can Asians Think? (Singapore: Times Editions, 2001).

Kishore Mahbubani, The Great Convergence: Asia, the West, and the Logic of One World (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013).

Kishore Mahbubani, Has the West Lost It? A Provocation (London: Allen Lane, 2018).

Bilahari Kausikan, Singapore Is Not An Island: Views on Singapore Foreign Policy (Singapore: World Scientific, 2017).

Academic and Analytical Works

Michael Leifer, Singapore's Foreign Policy: Coping with Vulnerability (London: Routledge, 2000).

Amitav Acharya, Singapore's Foreign Policy: The Search for Regional Order (Singapore: World Scientific, 2008).

Alan Chong, "Small State Soft Power Strategies: Virtual Enlargement in the Cases of the Vatican City State and Singapore," Cambridge Review of International Affairs, vol. 23, no. 3 (2010).

Matthias Maass, Small States in World Politics: The Story of Small State Survival, 1648–2016 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017).

Robert Beckman and Tara Davenport, "The EEZ Regime: Reflections after 30 Years," in The Law of the Sea Convention: US Accession and Globalization (Leiden: Brill, 2012).

N. Ganesan, Realism and Interdependence in Singapore's Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 2005).

Ang Cheng Guan, Singapore, ASEAN and the Cambodian Conflict, 1978–1991 (Singapore: NUS Press, 2013).

Tommy Koh, "A Constitution for the Oceans," remarks at the final session of UNCLOS III, 1982 — reprinted in various collections.

Government Publications and Documents

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Singapore, press statements on multilateral affairs, various dates.

Prime Minister's Office, Singapore, statements on the Ukraine crisis, climate policy, and UN engagement, various dates.

National Climate Change Secretariat, Singapore's Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement, 2016 and 2020.

Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment, Singapore Green Plan 2030 (2021).

News Sources

The Straits Times (Singapore), various dates 1965–2026. Channel News Asia (Singapore), various dates. UN News Centre, various dates. Reuters and Associated Press, coverage of key multilateral events.

---

This document was produced for the Singapore Governance Knowledge Corpus. It is a Level 1 Anchor document and is designed to generate multiple Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 documents through its Spiral Index. All claims are attributed to identified sources. Where the record is contested, both sides are presented with equal analytical rigour.