About the Report Launch Seminar

The report, which is a product of joint research by the International Peace Institute (IPI) and S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), examines the critical roles that small states play in advancing multilateralism against the backdrop of intensifying geopolitical tensions and global challenges. Representing the majority of UN member states, small states have been instrumental in championing international law, protecting global commons, and pushing frontier issues in multilateral action. The report also explores various tools and techniques that small states use to shape global governance, and offers practical recommendations for these states to help implement the UN Pact for the Future and enhance a rules-based multilateral system.

About the Speakers

Adam Lupel has been Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at the International Peace Institute since 2016. He served as IPI Acting President and CEO from October 2020 to March 2021. He is responsible for developing IPI’s long-term research agenda and for overseeing management and coordination among all IPI Departments. Between 2014 and 2016 he served as the director of research and publications for the Independent Commission on Multilateralism, a project of IPI. In 2015, he led IPI’s support to the General Assembly-mandated “Lessons Learned Exercise” on the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, working in close collaboration with the Executive Office of the Secretary-General.

Dr Lupel also conducts research on issues related to globalization, multilateralism, and the prevention of mass atrocities. He is the author of Globalization and Popular Sovereignty: Democracy’s Transnational Dilemma (2009) and the co-editor of Peace Operations and Organized Crime: Enemies or Allies? (2011) and Responding to Genocide: The Politics of International Action (2013).

Prior to 2006, when he joined IPI as Editor, he was the Managing Editor of Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory, and he taught modern and contemporary political theory at The New School’s Eugene Lang College in New York. He has a PhD in political theory and an MA in liberal studies from the New School for Social Research and a BA in international relations with a concentration in Latin America from Boston University.

Kaewkamol “Karen” Pitakdumrongkit is Senior Fellow and Head of Centre for Multilateralism Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) of Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), U.S.A.

Her research interests include international economic negotiation, Indo-Pacific economic governance and integration, regional-global economic governance dynamics, ASEAN Economic Community, and ASEAN’s external relations (ASEAN-Plus frameworks). She has published in various outlets such as The Singapore Economic Review, The International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, The Pacific Review, Australian Outlook, Review of International Political Economy, The Diplomat, and East Asia Forum. Her media interviews include Bangkok Post, Bloomberg, Business Times, Channel News Asia, CNBC Asia-Pacific, New Straits Times, The Strait Times, South China Morning Post, and Xinhua.

Besides publications and media engagement, Dr Karen organized several capacity-building programmes such as the Annual RSIS-World Trade Organization (WTO) Parliamentarian Workshops in Singapore, and In-Country Workshops on Technical Trade Issues which are tailored to the specific needs of the trade officials in Asian countries. She was also part of the team involved in composing the elements of the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint 2025. In addition, Dr Karen teaches modules at the RSIS MSc International Political Economy programme, and occasionally provides briefings to international diplomats and military students at Singapore’s Goh Keng Swee Command and Staff College.

Joel Ng is Research Fellow and Deputy Head of the Centre for Multilateralism Studies (CMS). His research focuses on regionalism, integration, security, and intervention norms, focusing on ASEAN and its dialogue partners as well as the African Union. He began his career in international affairs working in Uganda on peace, conflict, and refugee issues. He has also worked in the private sector in Singapore in public and investor relations. He is presently in the Singapore committee for the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP). Dr Ng is the author of Contesting Sovereignty: Power and Practice in Africa and Southeast Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2021). He has published widely in venues such as International Affairs, Project Syndicate, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He has a DPhil from the University of Oxford, where he was an Oxford-Swire and Tan Kah Kee scholar, and also holds a MA (Distinction) from the University of Sussex, and a BA (Hons) from the University of East Anglia.