The lecture series recognizes the influential scholarship of Harry N. Scheiber in ocean law history and policy and the Scheibers’ joint contributions to advancing the subject through the Law of the Sea Institute’s conferences and publications.
Spring 2026 Scheiber Lecture
Marine AI, Autonomy, and the Internet of Things in the Law of the Sea
Monday, February 23, 2026
12:50 – 2:00 p.m.
UC Berkeley School of Law, Warren Room
In person(opens in a new tab) and via Zoom Webinar(opens in a new tab)
Dr. James Kraska
James Kraska is Charles H. Stockton Chair of International Maritime Law and Department Chair of the Stockton Center for International Law at the U.S. Naval War College and Visiting Professor of Law and John Harvey Gregory Lecturer on World Organization at Harvard Law School, where he teaches a popular course on the International Law of the Sea. Professor Kraska’s research focuses on the law of the sea, the regulation of marine technology, and the law of naval warfare. He has also served as a visiting professor at the University of the Philippines and Gujarat National Law University. He previously served on the faculty of Duke University Marine Laboratory in the Nicholas School of the Environment and the Marine Policy Center, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. His most recent books are “Incidents at Sea in U.S. Diplomacy and International Law” (with Raul Pedrozo) (forthcoming Oxford University Press 2026) and “Marine Technology, Ocean Governance, and the Law of the Sea” (with Khanssa Lagdami) (forthcoming Cambridge University Press 2026). Professor Kraska served as a Navy judge advocate and earned a professional doctorate in law from the Maurer School at Indiana University and research doctorate in law from the University of Virginia.
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Past Honorees
Spring 2024 Scheiber Lecture
A Lawyer’s First Impression of the New High Seas Biodiversity Treaty
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
12:50 – 2:00 PM (Pacific)
We were delighted to welcome Bernard H. Oxman as our featured lecturer for the Spring 2024 Harry and Jane Scheiber Lecture in Ocean Law & Policy, a hybrid lecture and reception at Berkeley Law. Professor Oxman will explore the recently adopted, historic High Seas Treaty, also known as the agreement on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction.
Bernard H. Oxman
Bernard H. Oxman is the Richard A. Hausler Professor of Law at the University of Miami, where he directs the law school’s LL.M. program in maritime law. He is the only American to have been appointed judge ad hoc of both the International Court of Justice and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, and has also served as an arbitrator and counsel in international cases. Formerly co-editor in chief of the American Journal of International Law, he was recently awarded the American Society of International Law’s highest honor, the Hudson Medal.
Fall 2022 Scheiber Lecture
Climate Change and the Oceans: An Existential Challenge for International Law
Lecture & Webinar 12:45 – 2PM in Room 295 Warren Room at Berkeley Law School
Reception to follow in Steinhart Courtyard
Nilüfer Oral
Nilüfer Oral is Director of the Centre of International Law at the National University of Singapore. She is also a member of the United Nations International Law Commission, where she is co-chair of the Study Group on sea-level rise in relation to international law. She served as an advisor and climate change negotiator for Turkish Foreign Ministry 2009-2016. She has also appeared before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. She is a Distinguished Fellow of the Law of the Sea Institute at Berkeley Law, University of California, and a Senior Fellow of the National University of Singapore Law School. She is a member of the Committee of Legal Experts of the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law, and a member of the Steering Committee of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law. She has numerous publications and has spoken at many international conferences. She was a member of the law faculty for Istanbul Bilgi University (1998-2021).
Spring 2022 Scheiber Lecture
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The Law of the Sea and Democracy by Tom Ginsburg
Lecture & Webinar 12:45 – 2pm in Berkeley Law School Room 105 (Limit 50 physical seats)
Reception 2 – 3pm in Steinhart Courtyard (Limit 50 attendees)
The law of the sea is not an area of international law that one associates with democracy. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is one of the worlds most broadly acceded-to and effective treaties, incorporating all kinds of states. The central cleavages among these states—coastal vs. maritime powers, developing countries vs. industrialized nations, landlocked vs. those with access to the seas—have only coincidental links with the global division of democracy and dictatorship. Yet, this lecture will argue, the law of the sea has surprising connections with democracy, in that democratic states are enthusiastic users of the UNCLOS system. Furthermore, the oceans, so long thought of as a zone free of national jurisdiction, are increasingly an arena for domestic struggles within democratic countries. The availability of the seas as a space for democratic contestation is shaped by the institutional structures of UNCLOS.
Tom Ginsburg
Tom Ginsburg is the Leo Spitz Professor of International Law at the University of Chicago, where he also holds an appointment in the Political Science Department. He is a Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation. He holds B.A., J.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley, and currently co-directs the Comparative Constitutions Project, an NSF-funded data set cataloging the world’s constitutions since 1789, that runs the award-winning Constitute website. Finally, he is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
2021 Scheiber Lecture
The Law of the Sea: A Multi-Faceted Discipline and a Promising Field for Practitioners
Thursday, Feb 4Judge Tullio Treves
Tullio Treves is Professor Emeritus at the State University of Milan and Public International Law Senior Consultant at Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP (Milan office). He served as Judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea from 1996 to 2011. Within the Tribunal, he was the President of the Seabed Disputes Chamber, including in the proceedings for the delivery, on 1 February 2011, of an Advisory Opinion upon the request of the Council of the International Seabed Authority. He has chaired the Tribunal’s Committee of the Whole for the drafting of the Rules of the Tribunal. From 1973 to 1982, he was a member of the Italian delegation to all sessions of the Third United Nations Conference on Law of the Sea.
JUDGE JOAN DONOGHUE
International Court of Justice
Judge Joan Donoghue was elected to the International Court of Justice in 2010, following a career at the U.S. State Department, where she served as the Principal Deputy Legal Adviser (the senior career attorney) from 2007 to 2010. Her work there spanned diverse topics in public international law, such as the negotiation and interpretation of treaties, the law of the sea, the environment, investment, human rights law and international humanitarian law. Judge Donoghue has had extensive experience with various forms of international dispute settlement, including claims agreements, arbitration and adjudication. She has also taught at several U.S. law schools and has lectured frequently on aspects of international adjudication. Judge Donoghue received Bachelor of Arts degrees (with honors) in Biology and in Russian Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz (1978), and received her JD from Berkeley Law in 1981.
RONÁN LONG
Inaugural Director of the WMU-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute at the World Maritime University, Sweden
Professor Ronan Long is Inaugural Director of the World Maritime University-Sasakawa Global Ocean Institute and lectures on a broad range of ocean governance subjects including: the law of the sea, the law of climate change, as well as on multilateral diplomacy and dispute resolution. Previous appointments include a Personal Professorship and the Jean Monnet Chair of European Law at the National University of Ireland Galway, a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Oceans Law and Policy, University of Virginia School of Law and a Senior Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence, Law of the Sea Institute, Berkeley Law, University of California, faculty at the Rhodes Academy Oceans Law and Policy, as well as the United Nations—The Nippon Foundation of Japan Fellowship Programme.