Convenors & Participants

Dr Olena Bokareva is Senior Lecturer in Private Law at the Faculty of Law, Lund University. She holds a doctorate from Lund University, with a thesis on the Rotterdam Rules. She is Principal Investigator of the Marianne and Marcus Wallenberg Foundation project Sustainable Carbon Capture, Transportation and Storage: Liability and Governance in Light of International and EU Law, conducted jointly with Dr Gabriela Argüello (Gothenburg).

Dr Luciana Fernandes Coelho is Postdoctoral Fellow in Maritime Law at the Faculty of Law, Lund University. She holds a doctorate from the World Maritime University, with a thesis on the implementation of marine scientific research obligations under UNCLOS by Small Island Developing States. She has worked with the Brazilian delegation on the BBNJ negotiations.

Dr Anıl Öztürk is Postdoctoral Fellow in Maritime Law at the Faculty of Law, Lund University. He holds a BA from Bilkent University, an LLM from Trinity College Dublin, and a PhD from the National University of Ireland. His research addresses the law of the sea, EU and international climate law, and the regulation of carbon capture and storage, the EU Emissions Trading System, and the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism.

Dr Aref Fakhry is Associate Professor at the World Maritime University, Malmö, where he lectures in the MSc Maritime Law and Policy specialisation. He holds a PhD from the University of Southampton, with doctoral research on the implications of piracy in the Horn of Africa for maritime contracts. His areas of expertise comprise commercial maritime law, maritime security, marine environmental law, and ocean governance and policy.

H.E. President Tomas Heidar has served as President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea since 2023, and as Judge of the Tribunal since 2014. He is Director of the Law of the Sea Institute of Iceland and Co-Director of the Rhodes Academy of Oceans Law and Policy. From 1996 to 2014 he served as Legal Adviser to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Iceland, with the rank of Ambassador.

Dr Konrad Marciniak has served as Judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea since October 2023. He holds a doctorate in International Law from Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University, Warsaw. From 2007 to 2023 he served at the Treaty and Legal Department of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, latterly as Director and Legal Adviser, and was Vice-President of the Bureau of the BBNJ Intergovernmental Conference.

Professor Yoshifumi Tanaka holds the chair of International Law with Specific Focus on the Law of the Sea at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. He received his doctorate from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva. He is the author of five monographs, including The International Law of the Sea (Cambridge University Press, 3rd ed., 2019) and The Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Mr Bismark Owoahene Acheampong serves as a maritime policy and ocean governance specialist at the Maritime Services Division of the Ghana Maritime Authority, Accra. His public writing addresses maritime decarbonisation, the just transition for seafarers, and the legal and regulatory challenges of greening West African shipping.

Dr Gabriela Argüello is Associate Senior Lecturer in Environmental Law at the Department of Law, University of Gothenburg, and Research Fellow of the Royal Swedish Academy of Letters, History and Antiquities. She is the author of Marine Pollution, Shipping Waste and International Law (Routledge, 2020), and co-investigator with Dr Bokareva on the legal frameworks for sustainable carbon capture, transport and storage.

Dr Elizabeth Batsara is Senior Consultant on Maritime Decarbonisation at Ricardo plc, Athens. She advises the European Commission, the International Maritime Organization, and national governments on regional and international maritime climate policy, with particular reference to emissions trading instruments and the IMO net-zero framework.

Professor Dr Andree Kirchner is Founding Director of the Institute for the Law of the Sea and International Marine Environmental Law (ISRIM) at the Hugo Grotius gGmbH, Bremen, and Professor of International Law at the University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven (since 2007). His research and teaching address the law of the sea, marine environmental law, marine genetic resources, and maritime security.

Dr Niels Krabbe is a researcher in international law at the Department of Law, University of Gothenburg, with a doctorate on bioprospecting and deep-sea genetic resources. He previously served as Deputy Director at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs and represented the EU in the final BBNJ negotiations.

Dr Vonintsoa Rafaly is Postdoctoral Fellow at the WMU-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute, World Maritime University, Malmö, under the Future Ocean Programme of the Nippon Foundation. She holds a doctorate from the University of Nantes, with prior postdoctoral appointments at the University of Gothenburg and the University of Copenhagen. Her research addresses ocean governance, international environmental law, international fisheries law, and ocean justice.

Professor Dr Henrik Ringbom holds the chair of Marine Law at Åbo Akademi University, Turku, and serves concurrently as Professor II at the Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law, University of Oslo. He previously served for eleven years as an EU official, including as Head of Unit for Marine Environment at the European Maritime Safety Agency. He is a past President of the Finnish Maritime Law Association.

Dr María Carolina Romero Lares is Head of the Maritime Law and Policy Specialization at the World Maritime University, Malmö. She holds a Dr. iur. (cum laude) from Leibniz Universität Hannover, an LLM from Tulane University, and her first law degree from Andrés Bello Catholic University. She serves as the designated WMU Focal Point for Memoranda of Understanding with IMLI, DIRECTEMAR (Chile), DICAPI (Peru), and the Ibero-American Maritime Law Institute.

Dr Matthew Scott is Senior Researcher and Head of the Human Rights and the Environment thematic area at the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, and Associate Professor and Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Lund University. He holds a doctorate in Public International Law from Lund. He is the author of Climate Change, Disasters and the Refugee Convention (Cambridge University Press, 2020).