Global Affiliates

Bjørn-Oliver Magsig is an Affiliate Member of our Academy, and a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand) where he focuses on the law of freshwater resources, climate change and the marine environment.

He has gained wide experience working as a lecturer, researcher and legal advisor in the areas of public international law; national and international environmental law; law of freshwater resources; law of the sea; and climate change law, for universities, international organisations, government ministries and non-governmental organisations across numerous countries.

Bjørn-Oliver has had the pleasure of visiting Wuhan and presenting his research on several occasions before joining the International Water Law Academy – e.g. 2^nd Sino-Europe Conference on Environmental Law; International Symposium of Ecohydrology and Water Security.

His recent key publications include:

'The Role of International Regimes and Courts in Clarifying Prevention of Harm in Freshwater and Marine Environmental Protection' (forthcoming) International Environmental Agreements:  Politics, Law and Economics.

– jointly with R Moynihan

'Water Security: A Litmus Test for International Law' (2020) 29 Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law, pp. 44-55.

'Prevention and Mitigation of Harmful Conditions and Emergency Situations (Articles 27-28)' in Boisson de Chazournes L and others (eds) The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses : A Commentary (Oxford University Press, 2018) pp. 275-96.
– jointly with R Moynihan

'Water Security as an Evolving Paradigm: Local, National, Regional and Global Considerations' in Rieu-Clarke A, Allan A and Hendry S (eds) Routledge Handbook of Water Law and Policy (Routledge, 2017) pp. 382-94.

'The Indus Waters Treaty: Modernizing the Normative Pillars to Build a More Resilient Future' in Adeel Z and Wirsing RG (eds) Imagining Industan : Overcoming Water Insecurity in the Indus Basin (Springer, 2017) pp. 69-89.

The Multi-Track Water Diplomacy Framework: A Legal and Political Economy Analysis for Advancing Cooperation over Shared Waters (The Hague Institute for Global Justice, 2016)
– jointly with P Huntjens, Y Yasuda, A Swain, R de Man and S Islam

International Water Law and the Quest for Common Security (Routledge, 2015)

Transboundary Water Governance and Climate Change Adaptation: International Law, Policy Guidelines and Best Practice Application (UNESCO, 2015)
– jointly with A Rieu-Clarke & R Moynihan

Bionote

Bjørn-Oliver’s current research explores pathways towards cooperative sovereignty and shared responsibility in a changing global order. He has led various interdisciplinary projects revolving around the socio-legal challenges of managing transboundary natural resources, serves on the Managing Board of the European Environmental Law Forum (EELF), is an Associate of the New Zealand Centre for Public Law, and a member of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law.

Previously, Bjørn-Oliver worked as a Lecturer in Law at University College Cork (Ireland) where he directed the LLM in Marine and Maritime Law and taught on the LLM in Environmental and Natural Resources Law. Prior to that, he was a Research Fellow at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Department of Environmental and Planning Law (Leipzig, Germany).