Alfred Soons

Alfred Henry Adriaan Soons (born October 13, 1948 in Aruba ) is a Dutch lawyer and professor of international law at the University of Utrecht .

Life

Born in Aruba, Soons attended elementary school there before moving to Zeist in the Netherlands with his parents . There he completed his schooling and completed his military service in the Dutch Navy between 1967 and 1968 . He then began studying law at the University of Utrecht. He completed this in 1971. This was followed by postgraduate studies at the University of Washington with a focus on maritime law . At the same time, Soons worked as a research assistant at the Institute for International Law at the University of Utrecht. The University of Washington awarded him a Master of Laws in 1974 . He then spent a year as a visiting scientist at Jesus College of Cambridge University . After returning to his home country, he was employed as a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam from 1974 to 1975 before entering the public service and working in various departments of the Dutch Ministry of Transport, always relating to the law of the sea. In 1982 he earned his doctorate in law, also on a maritime law topic . In addition, Soons worked as a judge in Rotterdam between 1981 and 1992 . In 1985 Soons was appointed to an extraordinary professorship in international law at the Erasmus University Rotterdam .

In 1987, he received a call of his alma mater as a professor of International Law. Since then he has been both director of the Institute for International Law and head of the Dutch Institute for the Law of the Sea at the University of Utrecht. Between 1995 and 1998 he was also dean of the law faculty at his university. At the international level, Soons appeared as a member of the Dutch delegation to the International Maritime Organization and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development . He was also involved in the drafting of the Oslo Convention for the Netherlands , advised the governments of various countries on questions of international law and has presided over several arbitration tribunals of the International Chamber of Commerce . He also represented countries like Indonesia in litigation before the International Court of Justice . He has lectured as a visiting professor at the University of Helsinki , the University of Washington and the Hague Academy of International Law, among others . In January 2014, Soons was appointed arbitrator in the legal dispute between the Netherlands and Russia before an arbitration tribunal under the Convention on the Law of the Sea about the events on the Arctic Sunrise .

Memberships (selection)

Between 1985 and 1995 Soons was co-editor of various Dutch journals on international law. Since 1987 he has been a member of the Executive Committee of the International Law Association . From 1992 to 1995 he was also a member of the Executive Committee of the American Society for International Law .

Publications (selection)

• Marine scientific research and the law of the sea . Dissertation. Kluwer Law and Taxation Publ., Deventer 1982, ISBN 90-6544-065-8 .
• The United Nations Security Council and the law of the sea. In: Thomas Aboagye Mensah (Ed.): Ocean governance - strategies and approaches for the 21st century . Law of the Sea Institute, Honolulu 1996, ISBN 0-911189-31-9 , pp. 279-288.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Press release No. 207 of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea of ​​January 13, 2014 (PDF; 72 kB)

Web links

• Detailed CV
• Homepage at the Dutch Institute for the Law of the Sea