Researchers' Activities

Members of the CIL Ocean Law and Policy Programme participated in a workshop organised by INTERPOL on 17 April in Singapore entitled ‘Operation 30 Days at Sea: Asia Pacific Operational Planning Meeting’. The workshop was held as part of a year-long global project to enforce the international rules regulating marine pollution from ships. Associate Professor Beckman gave a presentation on ‘The Global Legal Regime Governing Ship-Source Pollution’. Research Fellow Dr Zhen Sun and Research Associate Ms Millicent McCreath also participated in the workshop, along with representatives from governments throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Research Associate Ms Melissa Loja presented her research paper at the New Voices Panel at the 112th Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington DC. Ms Loja’s paper was about international agreements between non-state actors. Her paper discussed international agreements that national petroleum corporations such as Petronas, PetroVietnam, PetroleumBrunei and China National Offshore Oil Corporations enter into to manage disputes over petroleum resources that are shared by states across maritime zones and boundaries.

Professor Laurence Helfer, Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of International Law, remarked that her paper makes a concrete contribution to international law, because it presents primary data that have not been made known before, and it enables a granular examination of actual practices in international law.

CIL and the K.G. Jebsen Centre for the Law of the Sea (JCLOS), UiT The Arctic University of Norway held a side event at Arctic Frontiers 2018 in Tromsø, Norway on 24 January 2018 to launch the book entitled Governance of Arctic Shipping: Balancing Rights and Interests of Arctic States and User States. The book was a collaborative effort of CIL and JCLOS. The book sets out the legal framework that governs Arctic shipping, giving specific consideration to the roles of the International Maritime Organization and the Arctic Council, and compares the rights, interests, positions and practice of Arctic coastal states with those of user states, with particular emphasis on China, Japan and South Korea.

At the side event of Arctic Frontiers 2018, Associate Professor Robert C Beckman, CIL’s Head of Ocean Law Policy and Programme, presented a lecture on ‘The Cooperative Mechanism in the Straits of Malacca and Singapore: A Model for the Arctic?’.

Three members of the CIL Ocean Law and Policy team—Head of Programme Associate Professor Robert Beckman, Dr Zhen Sun and Ms Millicent McCreath—attended the 2018 Arctic Frontiers Conference in Tromso, Norway from 21 to 25 January 2018. The CIL team met with staff and students from the Jebsen Centre for Law of the Sea at the University of Tromso (UiT), and Assoc Prof Beckman gave a guest lecture at the UiT. The book Governance of Arctic Shipping was officially launched at a side event at the conference, and Assoc Prof Beckman, one of the book editors, spoke at the book launch. The book was edited by staff from UiT and CIL and was published by Brill. The CIL team also stopped in Oslo to visit the Scandinavian Institute for Maritime Law, where Assoc Prof Beckman gave a guest lecture to graduate students and faculty members at the University of Oslo law school.

Head of CIL Oceans Law and Policy Programme Associate Professor Robert Beckman participated in the 9th South China Sea Conference organised by the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam on 27–28 November 2017 in Ho Chi Minh City. The title of the conference was ‘Cooperation for Regional Security and Development’. Assoc Prof Beckman made a presentation to lead the panel discussion in the final session on the code of conduct for the South China Sea. He also chaired the session on Legal Dimensions in the South China Sea.

Head of CIL Oceans Law and Policy Programme Associate Professor Robert Beckman was invited to give a presentation during a plenary session of the ASEAN Conference on Reducing Marine Debris in ASEAN Region. The conference was held in Phuket, Thailand from 22 to 23 November 2017. Assoc Prof Beckman’s presentation was entitled ‘Legal Perspective: Transboundary Issues of Marine Debris’. CIL Research Associate Millicent McCreath also attended the conference and participated in the workshop on the second day on developing a project for the management of the plastic value chain to reduce plastic marine litter.

CIL Senior Research Fellow Youna Lyons participated in the KIOST/JVDI 2017 Regional Conference on the Ocean Policy for the East Asia and the Pacific Islands in Nadi-Fiji on 16–18 Nov 2017. The theme was ‘SDG 14 and Ocean Issues for the Pacific Islands and the East Asia’. She presented on the topic of ‘UNCLOS as the Cornerstone in the Implementation of SDG 14: A Central, Integrative and Framing Role’.

CIL Senior Research Fellow Dr Hao Duy Phan was invited to speak at the 5th East Asia Maritime Security Forum on ‘Maritime Security and Cooperation: Opportunities and Challenges in Asia-Pacific and the Arctic’ on 26–27 October in Edmonton, Canada. Dr Hao Duy Phan delivered a presentation on ‘Addressing Maritime Security Challenges in the South China Sea: The Role of ASEAN’. The Forum was co-organized by the China National Institute for South China Sea Studies and the China Institute at the University of Alberta.

From 20 to 22 October, CIL Research Associate Zoe Scanlon participated in the 8th annual conference on ‘Global Commons and the Governance of Unappropriated Spaces’ organised by the German-Southeast Asian Centre of Excellence for Public Policy and Good Governance in Bangkok. Ms Scanlon presented an invited paper on ‘Maritime Activities Beyond National Jurisdiction: Governance and Enforcement Challenges’ on a panel addressing issues of governance of global commons in oceans.

CIL Senior Research Fellow Ms Youna Lyons was invited as a resource speaker by the European Union to the 4th ASEAN-EU High Level Dialogue on Maritime Security, which was held in the Philippines on 5–6 October 2017. Her presentation, titled ‘Moving beyond competing narratives on the status of the marine environment in Southeast Asia through data’, is available here.