Seminar on Governance of Arctic Shipping: Recent Developments & Prospects

Captain J Ashley ROACH, Visiting Senior Principal Research Fellow / Captain, JAGC, USN (ret), Office of the Legal Adviser, US Department of State (ret)
Captain J Ashley Roach, JAGC, US Navy (retired) was attorney adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser, US Department of State, from 1988 until he retired at the end of January 2009. He was responsible for law of the sea matters. He has taught, advised and published extensively on national maritime claims and other law of the sea issues, including piracy and armed robbery at sea, at institutions such as the Rhodes Academy of Oceans Law and Policy. He has negotiated and participated in the negotiation of numerous international agreements involving law of the sea issues. He received his LLM (highest honors in public international law and comparative law) from the George Washington University School of Law in 1971 and his JD from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1963.

Professor Aldo CHIRCOP, Canada Research Chair in Maritime Law Policy, Dalhousie University
Professor Aldo Chircop (JSD, Dalhousie 1988) is Professor of Law and Canada Research Chair (Tier I) in Maritime Law and Policy at Dalhousie University, based at the Marine & Environmental Law Institute (MELAW, Schulich School of Law). He is also a researcher at the Ocean Frontier Institute, a faculty member at the International Development Studies Programme, and a research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Security and Sustainable Development. In 1988–92 he held directorships of the Mediterranean Institute (University of Malta) and International Ocean Institute, and was a member of Malta’s delegation to the Preparatory Commission established by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. On joining Dalhousie in 1992, he was Director of the Marine Affairs Program until 2001. In 2003–05 he held the Canadian Chair in Marine Environmental Protection at the IMO’s World Maritime University, Sweden. Professor Chircop has published extensively on the law of the sea, maritime law and coastal management fields. His most recent book is Canadian Maritime Law (Aldo Chircop, William Moreira, Hugh Kindred and Edgar Gold (eds), Irwin Law 2016), and he is a co-editor of the Ocean Yearbook (Martinus Nijhoff). Professor Chircop’s research focusses on interstitial issues of the international law of the sea and maritime law, in particular the regulation of polar shipping, use of maritime regulatory tools for marine spatial planning and conservation, and development of Canadian maritime law. Among his several professional affiliations, Professor Chircop is a member of the Nova Scotia bar and Chair of the International Working Group on Polar Shipping of the Comité Maritime International.

Professor Henrik RINGBOM, Professor II, Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law, University of Oslo
Professor Henrik Ringbom is Professor II (part-time) at the Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law at the University of Oslo (Norway) and at the KG Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea at the UiT The Arctic University in Tromsø (Norway), as well as Adjunct Professor (Docent) at Åbo Akademi University in Turku/Åbo (Finland). His previous work experience includes being Head of Unit for Marine Environment, Training and Statistics at the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) in Lisbon (Portugal) (2007–12) and Administrator at the Maritime Safety Unit of the European Commission in Brussels (Belgium) (1997–2003). He has published widely in the field of European and international maritime and environmental law and is the author of the book The EU Maritime Safety Policy and International Law (Brill 2008) and editor of Jurisdiction over Ships (Brill 2015). He is currently a board member of, inter alia, the European Maritime Safety Agency and the Scandinavian Institute of Maritime Law and is the past President of the Finnish Maritime Law Association.