Category Archives for "Contributors"

Maria Carolina Romero Lares

Associate Professor
World Maritime University

Dr. Romero received a Law degree from the Universidad Católica Andrés Bello in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1995. She initiated her career as a lawyer working for the firm Rodríguez & Mendoza, Abogados and later at the Legal Department of Banco de Venezuela (Bank of Venezuela) in Caracas. She obtained a LL.M. degree from Tulane University, New Orleans, in the U.S. and she continued her education in Germany, where she finished her Ph.D. at Hannover Universität with honors (cum laude).

From 2005 to 2009 she worked at the International Affairs Office of the Venezuelan Maritime Administration (INEA) in Caracas, where she reached the position of Head of the International Office and represented her country in several international meetings at IMO and the IOPC Funds in London. During those years she was elected as President (ad-honorem) of the Advisory Committee on the Law of the Sea and Maritime Law by the Secretary of Transportation’s Office of Venezuela; in order to produce maritime legislation proposals to be presented to the Secretary and subsequently to the Venezuelan Parliament.

She started her academic career in 2005 as a part-time Professor at the Universidad Nacional Experimental Marítima del Caribe (Venezuelan Maritime University), where she taught several courses dealing with Law of the Sea and IMO Conventions, supervised master dissertations and acted as referee for several publications. She was also invited to lecture at the Venezuelan Diplomatic Academy.

Dr. Romero joined WMU in 2010 and currently teaches the following courses: Maritime Law & International Maritime Conventions, Law of the Sea and Maritime Security, Law and Policy related to the Marine Environment and Principles of Maritime Administration and Management. She is also in charge of organizing the annual Moot Court Competition for the Master of Science Law & Policy Specialization focusing on current issues of public international law.

Dr. Romero has been very active in the delivery of Professional Development Courses on the Law of the Sea with special focus on Maritime Boundary Delimitations. She has also participated as a speaker in several conferences regarding the protection of the marine environment and the advancement and empowerment of women.

Her main areas of research are Law of the Sea, pollution liabilities, ocean governance, and the IOPC Funds.

Vasco Becker-Weinberg

Professor
Faculty of Law of the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa

Professor Vasco Becker-Weinberg is a professor at the Faculty of Law of the Universidade Lusófona, teaching Constitutional Law, Public International Law and EU Law. He is also the founder and former coordinator of the Masters on Law and Economics of the Sea at NOVA School of Law, where he lectures on the Law of the Sea and EU Law of the Sea. He has researched at prominent academic institutions and written and published extensively on the Law of the Sea. He is the founder and president of IPDM–The Portuguese Institute of the Law of the Sea (www.ipdm.pt) and the Editor-in-Chief of the recently launched Portuguese Yearbook of the Law of the Sea. He has been on several delegations to international fora and often advises on public international law and the law of the sea matters. More recently he has been part of the national Portuguese delegation to the intergovernmental conference on an international legally binding instrument under UNCLOS on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction. He has also been involved in the drafting of policies and legislation on many ocean governance subjects. He is currently Law Clerk at the Portuguese Constitutional Court and was previously Legal Advisor to the Portuguese Secretary of the Sea and a full-time scholar at the International Max Planck Research School for Maritime Affairs at the University of Hamburg.

Hide Sakaguchi

President
Ocean Policy Research Institute

Dr. Hide Sakaguchi has served as president of the Ocean Policy Research Institute (OPRI) of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF) since April 2021, and as an executive director of SPF since April 2022. Previously, he served as Executive Director at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC, 2018-2021). He joined JAMSTEC in 2003 and led various earth science programs as director of the Institute for Research on Earth Evolution and director of the Center of Mathematical Science and Advanced Technology.

He specializes in granular and fracture mechanics, simulation science and programming, earthquake mechanisms and plate tectonics, and oceanography.  He served as a principal research scientist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia (1998-2002) and adjunct professor at the Earthquake Research Institute, The University of Tokyo (2002–2003). He has a Ph.D from the Graduate School of Agriculture, Kyoto University.

Nilüfer Oral

Director
Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore
Member of UN’s International Law Commision

Nilüfer Oral is Director of the Centre of International Law (CIL) at the National University of
Singapore, and a member of the UN International Law Commission, where she is also Co-
chair of the Study Group on Sea-level rise in relation to international law. She was a climate
change negotiator for the Turkish Ministry (2009 – 2016).  She also appeared before the
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.  Nilufer Oral is a Distinguished Fellow of the
Law of the Sea Institute at Berkeley Law (University of California Law Berkeley); Senior
Fellow of the National University of Singapore Law School; and Honorary Research Fellow
at University of Dundee. She is a member of the Legal Experts Group of the Commission for
Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law. She is currently a member if
the Steering Committee of the World Commission of Environmental Law, and a member of
the Board of Governors of the International Council on the Environment. She was a member
of the IUCN Council for 2012-2016.

Dr. Oral is on the board of editors of several academic journals and has published widely in
international journals and books.

Dorota Lost-Sieminska

Deputy Director and Head of Legal Affairs Office, Legal Affairs and External Relations Division
International Maritime Organization (IMO)

Dr Dorota Lost-Sieminska is a Deputy Director and a Head of the Legal Affairs Office in the Legal Affairs and External Relations Division of the International Maritime Organization where she leads her team in the provision of legal advice in various complex subjects of international law, treaty law, maritime law, law of the sea and all other areas related to the activities of the Organization. She regularly represents IMO at various international meetings and conferences, including at the Meetings of the States Parties to UNCLOS and at the IGC on BBNJ. She also regularly lectures at the IMO International Maritime Law Institute in Malta, World Maritime University in Malmo and Queen Mary University of London.

Before joining IMO in 2011 she was a Director of the Maritime Transport and Inland Navigation Department in the Ministry of Transport in Warsaw, Poland and, among other duties, lead the Polish delegation to various UN and EU meetings.

Dorota obtained Master of Laws and PhD in international maritime law from the University of Gdansk, Poland and master of maritime law and the law of the sea from the IMO International Maritime Law Institute in Malta. She is also an advocate admitted to the Bar in Gdansk and a member of the Polish Academy of Science and the Polish Maritime Law Association.

Chris Vivian

Co-Chair WG41
Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection (GESAMP)

Dr Chris Vivian is currently a co-chair of GESAMP Working Group 41 on ‘Ocean Interventions for Climate Change Mitigation’ (formerly the Working Group on Marine Geoengineering).

He retired from Cefas, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (an agency of the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) in October 2016 where he had 30 years’ experience in an advisory role to UK Government on national and international issues relating to the environmental impacts of various human activities in the marine environment.

From 1989, he was a UK delegate in international meetings under the Oslo (now OSPAR) and London Conventions dealing with waste disposal at sea in the North-East Atlantic and the whole world respectively. He was the Chairman of the Scientific Groups of the London Convention and London Protocol from 2008 to 2011 and was the Chairman of the OSPAR Convention’s Biodiversity Committee that dealt with species/habitat protection issues as well as the impacts of human activities from 2006 to 2010.

At the London Convention/Protocol meetings Chris was heavily involved in the discussions on ocean fertilisation and marine geoengineering from 2007 and chaired the working group that finalised the amendments to the London Protocol on marine geoengineering in 2013.

He received a BSc in Geology and Oceanography in 1971 and a PhD in Marine Geochemistry in 1975, both from the at University College of Swansea in Wales.

Richard Barnes

Professor, Chair of International Law
University of Lincoln

Richard Barnes is Professor of International Law at the University of Lincoln. He is also Adjunct Professor of Law at the Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea, the University of Tromsø.

He is widely published in the fields of international law and law of the sea. Property Rights and Natural Resources (2009), won the SLS Birks Book Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship. In addition, he has edited five highly regarded collections, including Frontiers in International Environmental Law. Oceans and Climate. Essays in Honour of David Freestone (2021), the Research Handbook on Climate Change, Oceans and Coasts (2020), and The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: A Living Instrument (2016). He is currently working on papers on plastics and the circular economy, stewardship of the oceans, global solidarity and the law of the sea, the impact of COVID in maritime law, and the potential for an advisory opinion before international courts on climate induced sea-level rise. 

Professor Barnes is Current Legal Developments Editor of the International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law.  He is also on the editorial boards of the New Zealand Yearbook of International Law and the German Yearbook of International Law.

He has acted as a consultant for a range of public and private bodies, including the WWF, the European Parliament, the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, and Ministry for Transport. He also provided advice to foreign ministries.  He has appeared numerous times before Parliamentary select committees on matters related to law of the sea, fisheries and Brexit.

H.E. Marie Jacobsson

Ambassador
Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Sweden

Ambassador Marie Jacobsson is the Principal Legal Adviser on International Law at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. She was a Member of the United Nations International Law Commission (ILC) 2007-2016 and Special Rapporteur for the topic ‘Protection of the environment in relation to armed conflicts’. She is a Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, a designated arbitrator under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, designated arbitrator under the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty and designated conciliator of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration within the OSCE. She is designated Special Representative for Inclusive Peace Processes by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Member of the Swedish Women Mediation Network.

Marie Jacobsson’s work focuses on international peace and security matters. She has extensive experience of high-level multilateral and bilateral negotiations on such matters as law of the sea, polar law, international environmental law, boundary delimitation, regional security affairs, international humanitarian law and arms control.

She is Associate Professor of International Law at Lund University and holds a Doctor of Law from that University.

Betsy Valente

Chief of Freshwater and Marine Regulatory Branch
United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

Betsy manages a diverse portfolio focused on protecting and restoring waters of the United States, including wetlands, and protecting ocean waters. More specifically, Betsy leads efforts associated with the Clean Water Act section 404 wetlands program and the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act, which implements U.S. policies and international obligations relating to ocean dumping.

Since 2009, Betsy has led and contributed to London Convention/London Protocol (LC/LP) activities for the United States, led national ocean dumping management efforts, and supported EPA’s marine pollution control programs generally. Betsy has served as the Chair of the LC and LP Contracting Parties Meetings since 2020, having previously served as a vice-chair from 2014 to 2019. Betsy has also supported water sector emergency response and resiliency efforts.

Prior to joining EPA, she worked as an environmental scientist, focusing on contaminated sediments in the Great Lakes, urban wet weather pollution, and water quality issues. Betsy has conducted research in the United States as well as in the Brazilian Amazon and Great Barrier Reef regions. Betsy received a bachelor’s degree from Denison University and a Master of Applied Science from James Cook University.

Zhen Sun

Associate Professor (Research/Ocean Sustainability, Governance & Management)

Dr. Zhen Sun is an Associate Professor (Research/Ocean Sustainability, Governance & Management) at the WMU-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute, World Maritime University in Malmö, Sweden. Her main research interests include law of the sea, international regulation of shipping, gender equality in ocean governance, climate actions and the protection of the marine environment.

At WMU, Zhen has played an active role in the launch and execution of a number of high-level research programmes, including serving as Co-Principal Investigator (PI) for both the Land-to-Ocean Leadership Programme and the Empowering Women for the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development Programme. She contributes to the delivery of the MSc Ocean Sustainability, Governance & Management (OSGM) specialization, and the PhD Programme in Maritime Affairs through substantial teaching and supervision commitments.

Prior to joining WMU, Zhen was a Research Fellow at the Centre for International Law (CIL), National University of Singapore. She was a member of the CIL Ocean Law and Policy team, in which she worked on a wide range of subjects in the law of the sea. Zhen was the researcher-in-charge for a number of research projects and capacity building activities at CIL, including projects funded by the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore.

Zhen has contributed to the editorial work of a couple of book projects and published a number of book chapters and journal articles on various topics on the law of the sea.  Zhen received the Bachelor of Laws Degree from Hainan University and a LLM in International Law from China University of Political Science and Law in China. She continued her education in the United Kingdom where she received a LLM in Public International Law (with distinction) from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD from the University of Cambridge.