Dr. Saiful Karim is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia. He teaches and researches in different areas of ocean, environmental and agricultural law. He has published extensively in the fields of ocean and environmental law and has presented research papers at conferences and workshops organized by various academic and research organizations based in Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania.
Dr. Karim is the author of “Prevention of Pollution of the Marine Environment from Vessels: The Potential and Limits of the International Maritime Organisation” (Springer, 2015), “Maritime Terrorism and the Role of Judicial Institutions in the International Legal Order” (Brill-Nijhoff, 2017) and “Shipbreaking in Developing Countries: A Requiem for Environmental Justice from the Perspective of Bangladesh” (Routledge, 2018).
Dr. Karim has held a visiting faculty position at Sydney University, where he taught a postgraduate course on Asia Pacific Environmental Law. He was a consultant at the University of the South Pacific. He was a visiting research fellow at the National University of Singapore and has practiced law in Singapore. He was a member of the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association (BELA).
The Australian Government has nominated Dr. Karim to a number of important global expert bodies. He is a lead author of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC). He is also a lead author of the first Global Assessment and the first Asia Pacific Regional Assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).
Dr. Karim is the recipient of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law 2018 Scholarship Award for his outstanding contribution in interdisciplinary research of environmental law. He is also a recipient of the QUT Vice-Chancellor’s Performance Fund Award for Significant Achievement in Research. He has traveled to all continents (except Antarctica) for research, academic and professional activities. He is a QUT accredited level-2 research supervisor. His main research and Ph.D. supervision interests include:
- International and comparative environmental law
- Marine environmental law
- Law of the sea
- The role of national and international judicial institutions in the international legal system
- Maritime security
- Piracy and maritime terrorism
- Agricultural law and policy
- Climate change law
- Regional legal integration and environmental governance in the Asia-Pacific
- Asian legal studies
- South Pacific law
