Since 2017, Prof Erik Franckx is the President of the Belgian Society for International Law. He heads the Department of International and European Law at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, where he obtained his law degree in 1981, his PhD in 1989, and a research professorship between 2010 and 2020.
He has been nominated by Belgium as member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration (2006-2018); arbitrator under Article 2 of Annex VII to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (since 2014); expert in marine scientific research for use in special arbitration under Annex VIII of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (since 2016); expert in maritime boundary delimitation to the International Hydrographic Organization (since 2005); and member of the Belgian national Commission for the Revision of Private and Public Maritime Law (2012-20).
He is also a member of the International Law Association’s Committee on Submarine Cables and Pipelines under International Law, an organization where he served as rapporteur between 1991 and 2000 on the Committee on Coastal State Jurisdiction over Marine Pollution (see Erik Franckx (ed.), Vessel-source Pollution and Coastal State Jurisdiction: The Work of the ILA Committee on Coastal State Jurisdiction Relating to Marine Pollution (1991-2000), The Hague, Kluwer Law International, 2001, 391 pp.).
The following major specialized teaching projects involved in as Law of the Sea expert can be mentioned: Rhodes Academy of Ocean Law and Policy: Invited as speaker in their inaugural session in 1996, Rhodes, Greece; ITLOS Nippon Capacity-building and Training Programme on Dispute Settlement under UNCLOS, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Hamburg, Germany (since 2013); Summer Academy of the International Foundation for the Law of the Sea, International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Hamburg, Germany (2011-2015); and International Law of the Sea Summer Academy, Istanbul, Turkey (since 2018).
He has published widely on the law of the sea (for a complete list, click here), including two standard works:
Kristen Gustafson Juras, John E. Noyes and Erik Franckx, Law of the Sea in a Nutshell, St. Paul, Minnesota, West Publishing Company, 2010, 613 pp.; and
Louis B. Sohn, John E. Noyes, Erik Franckx and Kristen Gustafson Juras, Cases and Materials on the Law of the Sea, Leiden, Brill, 2014, 1006 pp.
Last updated: 2020.08.24. A.A