Ms Youna Lyons

She is a Senior Research Fellow with the Ocean Law and Policy Programme of the Centre for International Law (CIL), National University of Singapore (NUS). Her dual expertise in law and marine sciences uniquely positions her to integrate these fields for marine policy-making purposes and has led her to spearhead and coordinate several multidisciplinary research projects at CIL including the prospects for re-use of obsolete offshore installations as artificial reefs in Southeast Asia, sensitivity mapping for Singapore in the context of oil spill preparedness and response, and the mapping of shallow features in the South China Sea.

In addition to academic research work and publications, she supports and participates to global and regional intergovernmental meetings on the protection of the marine environment as an observer. She is Chair of the Board of the Advisory Committee on Protection of the Sea (ACOPS) and environmental advisory committee since 1952, with a consultative status at the IMO, the London Convention and Protocol, the Arctic Council and OSPAR. She is also involved in the teaching of university students and training of government delegates. She has spent the last 10 years of her career in Asia and is, in parallel, completing a PhD with the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS) at the University of Wollongong titled ‘Identifying sensitive marine areas in the South China Sea and under international law’. Her legal qualifications are two bachelors degrees in procedural and international law, an LLM in international law from University Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne and entry to the Paris Bar obtained in 1992. She later studied marine sciences at the College of Ocean and Fisheries and in addition was granted a Masters in Marine Affairs from the School of Marine Affairs of the University of Washington in Seattle.