A specialist in international security and maritime affairs, Steven Haines, has been appointed as the inaugural Professor of Public International Law. A former serving naval officer and member of the Central Policy Staff in the Ministry of Defence, his academic interests include international law relating to oceans and maritime affairs, as well as the use of force and the conduct of military and security operations.
Steven’s new post is based in the splendid historic setting of Sir Christopher Wren’s former Greenwich Hospital. Now home to the university’s Greenwich Campus, it previously housed the Royal Naval Staff College where Steven studied in both 1979 and 1993. “I really feel I am coming home” says Steven, “especially as my office is two doors down the corridor from what was my cabin in 1979!
“I am delighted to be in Greenwich because the university’s plans for developing postgraduate teaching and research provide a rare and genuinely exciting opportunity for us really to develop a distinctive identity for the Law School. It is a wonderful privilege to be a part of this.”
Most recently, Steven has been working as an academic international lawyer in Geneva, for the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and as an adjunct member of the Faculty at the Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.
He has just been appointed a Visiting Fellow of the University of Oxford’s Changing Character of War Programme and has also held academic posts at Royal Holloway College, University of London; St Antony’s College, Oxford; and Cranfield University. Recent publications include two contributions to International Law and the Classification of Conflicts published by OUP in August (edited by Elizabeth Wilmshurst). Currently, Steven is writing the commentary on maritime aspects of the Geneva Convention for a major OUP publication, and drafting international guidelines for the protection of education during armed conflicts.
Steven will also contribute to the School’s research interest in maritime law, working closely with colleagues in the university’s Greenwich Maritime Institute.
Story by Public Relations, University of Greenwich
