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Institution: SJD Candidate and Michigan Grotius Fellow, University of Michigan Law School

Period of stay: 14 July 2025 - 19 September 2025

Contact: temprosa@umich.edu

https://michigan.law.umich.edu/academics/programs-study/sjd-program#

 

 

 

 

 

Profile: 

Tom is an SJD candidate and Michigan Grotius Fellow at the University of Michigan Law School, and a legal scholar and practitioner working at the intersection of international law and human rights. He completed his LLM at Michigan in 2017, receiving the Clyde DeWitt Fellowship, the Jon Henry Kouba Prize for best paper in international peace and security, and a certificate of merit from ICJ Judge Bruno Simma. He was Articles Editor of the Michigan Journal of International Law, received the S. James Anaya Award for legal scholarship, the DILA Prize for Young Scholars in International Law, and was elected a Pacific Fellow by the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.

He teaches human rights law and advanced international law courses at the Ateneo Law School and lectures at the Philippine Judicial Academy. He previously served as Director and Legal Adviser at the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines and worked for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees on statelessness, refugee protection, and displacement.

His scholarship appears in journals such as the Berkeley Journal of International Law, Asian Journal of International Law, Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, and Asian Yearbook of International Law. His latest chapter, “Persuading to Ratify,” appears in Statelessness in Asia (Cambridge University Press, 2024). He is the Regional Director of the Anti-Death Penalty Asia Network.

Research Area:

International Law, Evidence and Fact-Finding, Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, Accountability

Research Title:

Proving Mass Atrocities in International Law: The Origins and Practice on Standards of Proof of UN Commissions of Inquiry into Mass Atrocities

Research Outline:

This research examines the origin and practice of standards of proof in the context of the mass atrocity investigations of commissions of inquiry and other international legal proceedings. While international criminal tribunals have developed explicit thresholds for evidentiary sufficiency, much of international law operates without uniform or codified standards. First, the project interrogates how international legal institutions justify findings of fact in high-stakes contexts where certainty is unattainable and evidence is fragmentary, lost, or contested, with a close attention to the practice of commissions of inquiry.

Second, it proposes a theoretical framework for assessing and developing evidentiary thresholds for international law investigations. The project
addresses a critical gap in international law: the absence of clearly articulated standards of
proof for determining truth claims in human rights and related investigations. Through a purposive choice architecture, the project offers both normative and practical guidance for the use and application of such standards.

Third, it looks to the future, by recapitulating the need for a theory of proof for investigative bodies in international law in general and for commissions of inquiry in particular.

Drawing on doctrinal analysis, case studies, interdisciplinary epistemology, and ethics, the project contributes to understanding how international legal actors should navigate uncertainty. It proposes a principled approach to the selection and articulation of standards of proof for non-judicial investigations, with particular reference to commissions addressing genocide, crimes against humanity, and other serious violations of human rights.

SSRN page:

https://ssrn.com/author=2839146

Publications:

Journal Articles

“The Enduring Challenge to Human Rights Education: Reflections from the Field in the ‘New Normal’,” Human Rights Education in Asia-Pacific, 12 (2023).

“Who’s to Blame for COVID-19?: Views from the Law of State Responsibility, the International Health Regulations, and International Human Rights Law,” Ateneo Law Journal, 66 (2022): 332–363.

“Statelessness as Rhetoric: The Case for Revisioning the Definition of Statelessness in Our Statist World,” Berkeley Journal of International Law, 38 (2020): 240–285.

“Rights under Lockdown: Not Releasing Vulnerable Prisoners in the Time of a Pandemic is a Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment,” with Darwin L. Simpelo, Michigan Journal of International Law Online (August 2020).

“From Policy Irrelevant Research to a Return to Relevance: An ‘Active’ Approach to Forced Migration Research,” with Odessa Gonzalez Benson and Sura Shlebah, Refugee Review, 4(1) (2019): 69–84.

“A Disaster Approach to Displacement: IDPs in the Philippines,” with Reinna Bermudez and Odessa Gonzalez Benson, Forced Migration Review, 59 (2018): 44–46.

“Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement: Expression of Lex Lata or De Lege Ferenda?,” Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, 35(2) (2018): 257–292. Awarded the S. James Anaya Prize for Excellence in International Legal Scholarship.

“Withdrawals from the Rome Statute: Institutional (Il)Legitimacy,” Michigan Journal of International Law Online, April 2017.

“The ‘Liberalization’ of Refugee Naturalization: Some Insights in Republic v. Karbasi on the Gains and Deficits of the Law on Local Integration,” Ateneo Law Journal, 61 (2016): 242–265.

“Reflections on a Legal Confluence: International Law in the Philippine Court, 1940–2000,” Asian Yearbook of International Law, 19 (2013): 88–119. Recipient of the DILA Prize for Young Scholars in International Law.

“Statelessness in Philippine Law: Expanding Horizons of the International Stateless Person Protection Regime,” Ateneo Law Journal, 58 (2013): 29–80.

Books

Fundamentals of Human Rights Law, Central Bookstore (Philippines, 2021).

Update on the Rule of Law for Human Rights in ASEAN: The Path to Integration, co-authored, Human Rights Resource Centre – ASEAN, Jakarta (2016).

Disaster-Induced Internal Displacement in the Philippines: The Case of Tropical Storm Washi/Sendong, co-authored, Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (2013).

Book Chapters

“Persuading to Ratify: A Calculus of the Ratification of the Statelessness Convention in Asia,” in Statelessness in Asia, eds. Michelle Foster, Jaclyn Neo, and Christoph Sperfeldt, Cambridge University Press (2024).

“Ageing and Stateless: Non-Decisionism and State Violence across Temporal and Geopolitical Space from Bhutan to the United States,” with Odessa Gonzalez Benson, Yoosun Park, and Dilli Gautam, in Statelessness, Governance and the Problem of Citizenship, eds. Tendayi Bloom and Lindsey N. Kingston, Manchester University Press (2021).

“Displaced Securities,” in Irregular Migration and Human Security in East Asia, eds. Jiyoung Song and Alistair D. B. Cook, Routledge (2015).

Selected publications listed; full list available upon request or in part at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/author=2839146

 

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