Legendary diplomat Tommy Koh retires after 55 years, receives lifetime service award

After fifty-five years of service that helped draw the boundaries of the modern ocean and settle the sovereignty of a contested island, Singapore's Tommy Koh has stepped away from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at eighty-eight — not into silence, but into a quieter room where the work of shaping international law continues. His departure was marked with an honor invented for him alone, a fitting gesture for a man whose career resisted ordinary categories. In the long arc of small-nation diplomacy, Koh stands as evidence that intellectual integrity and patient negotiation can leave marks on th