Judge Tomas Heidar

Biography

H.E. President Tomas Heidar has been Judge of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) since 2014. He was Vice-President of ITLOS 2020-2023 and President of the Chamber for Fisheries Disputes 2017-2020. He was also a Member of the Special Chamber formed to deal with the Dispute concerning delimitation of the maritime boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius/Maldives).

From 1996-2014, he served as Legal Adviser of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Iceland, attaining the rank of Ambassador. As such he was responsible for all matters of public international law and represented Iceland regularly at meetings on oceans and the law of the sea at the United Nations and in other international fora.

Tomas Heidar is furthermore Director of the Law of the Sea Institute of Iceland and Co-Director and Lecturer of the Rhodes Academy of Oceans Law and Policy. He is also Lecturer at the University of Iceland and many other universities and academic institutions around the world.

He has published numerous books and articles on ocean affairs and the law of the sea, most recently New Knowledge and Changing Circumstances in the Law of the Sea (ed., Brill Nijhoff, 2020) and "The Contribution of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to the Protection of the Marine Environment" in the Korean Journal of International and Comparative Law 9 (2021). He is also Conciliator and Arbitrator under Annexes V and VII to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Tomas Heidar has been a great supporter of BIICL and has contributed to our courses in the law of the sea amongst other things.