Research areas: law of the sea, energy law, EU/EEA law, international trade law, international investment law, nuclear law.

Richard Barnes is Professor of International Law at the University of Lincoln and Adjunct Professor of Law at the Norwegian Centre for the Law of the Sea, the University of Tromsø.
 
He is widely published in the fields of international law and law of the sea. Property Rights and Natural Resources (2009), won the SLS Birks Book Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship. In addition, he has edited five highly regarded collections of essays including Frontiers in International Environmental Law. Oceans and Climate. Essays in Honour of David Freestone (2021), the Research Handbook on Climate Change, Oceans and Coasts (2020), and The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea: A Living Instrument (2016). His current research includes a research handbook on plastics regulation, and papers on the human right to property, ocean commons, and the BBNJ Agreement
 
Professor Barnes a member of the ILA Committee on the Protection of People at Sea. He is on the Editorial Board of International and Comparative Law Quarterly, the International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law, the New Zealand Yearbook of International Law, the German Yearbook of International Law, and the Portuguese Yearbook of the Law of the Sea. He is a member of the ILA Committee on Protection of People at Sea.
 
He has acted as a consultant for a range of public and private bodies, including the WWF, Oceana, ClinetEarth, the European Parliament, the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office. He also provided advice to foreign ministries.  He has appeared numerous times before Parliamentary select committees on matters related to law of the sea, fisheries and Brexit.

Law of the Sea, public international law, climate change and dispute settlement

Law of the Sea, Fisheries Law, Aquaculture Law

My most immediate research interests are located at the intersection of critical theory, law and ecology, with particular focus on international environmental law and ecosystem governance. I am particularly interested in genealogy as a method of critical legal analysis, and in biopolitics as a theoretical register for reading environmental law.

Current research focuses on 1) ocean commons, both at the theoretical level and in relation the new treaty on marine biodiversity in areas beyond national jurisdiction and on the interaction between space law and law of the sea 2) on critical histories of sovereignty and (international) legal modernity more broadly  3) on critical legal ocean studies, with increasing focus on critical legal geography.

I am currently Principal Investigator for a project funded by the Norwegian Research Council called "Future Arctic Law and Governance (FALG)".

I am also one of the Principal Investigators in the NCLOS AURORA Center, where I lead the research on Ocean Commons

I also particiopate, in various capacites, to other projects: as Work Package leader (FRAM Center project SUDARCO and Norwegian Research Council project DOGA), and as project member (FRAM Center project CLEAN, and EU Horizon project B-USEFUL)

In 2015 I have been awarded the Annual Richard Macrory Prize for best article in the Journal of Environmental Law (Oxford University Press) for 2015. In 2019 I have been awarded an Honorary Mention from the same prize.

Public International Law, Law of the Sea, Arctic Governance, Environmental Law, Maritime Law

The Law of the Sea, International Human Rights Law, Indigenous Peoples' Law, Critical legal theories focusing on the Third World approaches to international law (TWAIL), Peace and Conflict Studies, Restorative Justice, and Ethiopian company and competition law.

Law of the Sea, International Environmental Law, Climate Change Law, Biodiversity Protection, Regime Interaction