Nilufer Oral is a member of the law faculty at Istanbul Bilgi University. She was elected to the United Nations International Law Commission in 2016. She served as a legal advisor to the Turkish Foreign Ministry on matters related to the law of the sea and served as climate change negotiator between (2009 – 2016). She is a Distinguished Fellow of the Law of the Sea Institute at Berkeley Law (University of California Law Berkeley); a Distinguished Lecturer at the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore; lecturer for the UN Regional Law Courses for International Law and she has lectured at the Rhodes Academy for the Law of the Sea.
Dr. Oral was elected to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Council (2012-2016); served as Co-chair of the IUCN Specialist Group on Oceans, Coasts and Coral Reefs (2006-2018); served as Chair of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law (2014-2017). She is currently a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law Steering Committee. Dr. Oral also is a member of the Steering Committee of the Sustainable Ocean at the University of Utrecht, the Group of Experts for the Global Pact for the Environment as well as a member of the Ad Hoc Group of Experts for the Mediterranean Sea Marine Protected Areas (RAC-SPA). Dr. Oral is a member of the European Society of International Law and the American Society of International Law. Dr. Oral is the series editor for the International Straits of the World publications (Brill); is on the Board of Editors of the European Society of International Law Series and is an Associate Editor of the Research Perspectives in the Law of the Sea (Brill). She has published numerous articles and edited several books, and has spoken at numerous international conferences.