Professor Saiful Karim

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Professor, School of Law

PhD (Macquarie University), LLM by Research (National University of Singapore), LLM (University of Chittagong), Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice (Queensland University of Technology), LLB (Honours) (University of Chittagong)

Dr Saiful Karim is a Professor in the School of Law at Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in Brisbane, Australia. Dr Karim was the McDougall Visiting Professor in International Law at West Virginia University, where he taught a course on international climate change law and delivered the Annual McDougall Lecture. He also taught a postgraduate course on Asia–Pacific environmental law as a visiting faculty member at Sydney University. Dr Karim was a consultant at the University of the South Pacific where he taught courses on marine law and comparative environmental law. He was a visiting research fellow at the National University of Singapore and he practised at a Singapore law firm. Dr Karim was a lawyer in the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association.

Dr Karim teaches and researches in various areas of human rights, ocean and environmental  law. He has published extensively in the fields of ocean and environmental law and has presented research papers at several conferences and workshops 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).

The Australian Government nominated Dr Karim in several 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 was an advisor to the Australian government delegation in various  meetings of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC). Dr Karim received the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law 2018 Scholarship Award for his outstanding contribution to interdisciplinary research of environmental law. He was also awarded the QUT Vice-Chancellor’s Performance Fund Award for Significant Achievement in Research. Dr Karim has travelled to North and South America, Oceania, Europe, Asia and Africa for research, academic and professional activities. Dr Karim's main research interests include:

  • International and comparative environmental law
  • Marine environmental law
  • Law of the sea
  • Regulation of robotics and artificial intelligence
  • Climate change law
  • Regional environmental governance in the Asia-Pacific
  • Asian legal studies
  • South Pacific law

Additional information

  • WHEN GEOPOLITICS AND ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER MEET: Environmental Peacebuilding in the South China Sea
    PhD, Associate Supervisor
    Other supervisors: Professor Afshin Akhtar-Khavari
  • Traditional Medical Knowledge (TMK), Intellectual Property and Pharmaceutical Innovation in China: Propose a Legal Framework Towards Efficient Balance
    PhD, Associate Supervisor
    Other supervisors: Dr Fran Humphries