Judge Kriangsak Kittichaisaree
Member of the Tribunal since 1 October 2017
Born: Nan, Thailand, 2 February 1958.
Education: Ph.D., Cambridge University (1986).
Professional Experience: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Thailand (1986-2017): Chief Legal Counsel in maritime delimitation negotiations (1986-2017), Director, Division of Legal Affairs, Department of Treaties and Legal Affairs (1999-2002), Deputy Director-General, Department of Treaties and Legal Affairs (2002-2004), Ambassador responsible for international legal issues and counter-international terrorism (2004-2006), Director-General of the Department of International Organizations (2006-2007), Ambassador to Iran (2007-2010), Australia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu (2010-2012), Ambassador to the Russian Federation, Armenia, Belarus, Moldova and Uzbekistan (2015-2017); delegate and Secretary to the President, Inter-Sessional Meeting, Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee, New Delhi (1987); delegate and subsequently head of delegation, Preparatory Commission for the International Sea-Bed Authority and for the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, 5th to 9th sessions (1987-1991, Chairman, Group of 77 of the Whole, 1991); adviser, land boundary negotiations with Malaysia, Burma (Myanmar) and Laos (1987-1994); delegate, fisheries negotiations with Malaysia (1988-1993); delegate, fisheries co-operation negotiation with Vietnam (1991); delegate, UN Environment Programme’s Intergovernmental Conference to Adopt a Global Programme of Action for the Protection of the Marine Environment From Land-Based Activities, Washington, DC (1995); Visiting Professor, University of New South Wales School of Law, Sydney (1999-2008); head of delegation, 5th and 8th Sessions of the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court (2000, 2001); Visiting Professor, Asia-America Institute in Transnational Law, Duke University School of Law (2000 and 2004); listed as expert for the purposes of special arbitration under art. 2, Annex VIII, of the Convention (2000-2014); head of the Thai delegation, 40th Session, Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization, New Delhi (2001); alternate representative, UN General Assembly (2001, 2007); advisor and agent in two cases before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (2001 and 2013-2015); head of delegation, UN Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea, New York (2001, 2011, 2013); eminent adviser, Constitutional Court of Thailand (2006); alternative representative, Steering Committee of the Four Nations (Chile, South Africa, Sweden and Thailand) Initiative on Governance and Management of the UN Secretariat (2006-2008); Distinguished Visitor (equivalent to a visiting professor), National University of Singapore Faculty of Law (2006, 2009); representative, UN General Assembly (2006-2016); Chairman, Working Group on the Administration of Justice at the UN, Sixth Committee, UN General Assembly (2011); Executive Director of the Thailand Trade & Economic Office (2012-2015); Chair, Expert Consultation on Thailand’s Implementation of UNCLOS and Related Instruments, Bangkok (2013); delegate, meetings of the Ad Hoc Open-Ended Working Group to study issues relating to conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity beyond areas of national jurisdiction (2014-2015); President, 25th Meeting of States Parties to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (2015-2016); delegate, Preparatory Commission on the development of an international legally binding instrument under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea on BBNJ (2016-2017); regular speaker and panellist at international seminars, conferences and workshops on the law of the sea; Conciliator under Annex V to the Convention (July 2017–present); Arbitrator under Annex VII to the Convention (July 2017–present); Visiting Research Consultant, Centre for International Law/National University of Singapore (April 2018-March 2019); Visiting Research Fellow of the University of Oxford's Mansfield College and Bonavero Institute of Human Rights (Hilary & Trinity Terms 2018); Presiding judge of the world grand finale round of the Price Media Law Moot Court Competition 2018; Judge of the 1st Sino International Law of the Sea Moot Court Competition, Beijing, China, October 2018; Teaching course 'International Law and Politics of Human Rights', Albrecht Mendelsohn Batholdy Graduate School of Law, University of Hamburg, February 2019; Judge of the Grand Final of the German National Round of the Philip C Jessup International Law Moot Competition 2019; External thesis supervisor, IMO International Maritime Law Institute, University of Malta campus (since October 2019); Judge of the grand final round of the 2nd Sino International Law of the Sea Moot Court Competition, Wuhan, China, 3 November 2019; Lecture at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, on “International Law in Asia and the Pacific” as part of the regional course in international law for Asia and the Pacific, organized by the Codification Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs in cooperation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, 6 December 2019; Guest lecturer, LLM in International Law of the Sea module, University of Essex and at the Centre for International Law/National University of Singapore (2021); dissertation marker, Diplomatic Studies Programme, University of Oxford 2021; regular speaker/panellist on the law of the sea at international conferences held in Brazil, India, Singapore and the UK.
Member: Chairman, Foundation for the Development of International Law in Asia (1999-2006); Editorial Board, Asian Yearbook of International Law (1999-2006); UNESCO Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission’s Advisory Body of Experts on the Law of the Sea (1999-2004); Regional Network on the Legal Aspects of Marine Pollution under the UNDP/IMO Programme for the Prevention and Management of Marine Pollution in the East Asian Seas (1995-2010); Advisory Panel (International), Indian Journal of International Law (2005-2012); Global Associate, Centre for International Law/National University of Singapore (2009-present); UN International Law Commission (2012-2016); Eminent Persons Group of the Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization (AALCO) (2012-present); Advisory Board, Thailand Journal of International Law (2015-present); Advisory Board of the Iranian Journal of International Criminal Law (since December 2019); International Advisory Panel, Centre for International Law/National University of Singapore (Since April 2022).
Publications: Published widely in the field of the law of the sea and other fields of international law, including: The Law of the Sea and Maritime Boundary Delimitation in South-East Asia, Oxford UP, 1987; Regional Co-operation on the Law of the Sea: ASEAN and the EC Perspectives (ed.), International Studies Centre, Institute of Foreign Affairs, Bangkok, 1988; Deep Seabed Mining and Its Reflections on Contemporary International Law, International Studies Centre, Institute of Foreign Affairs, Bangkok, 1989; “Development of ocean law and policy and management in Thailand”, Marine Policy 315, 1990; “Marine Resources Management”, 8 Foreign Relations Journal 83, Philippine Council for Foreign Relations, 1993; “Using Trade Sanctions and Subsidies to Achieve Environmental Objectives in the Pacific Rim”, 4 Colorado Journal of International Environmental Law and Policy 296, 1993; “Effectuation of international law in the municipal legal order of Thailand”, 4 Asian Yearbook of International Law, 1994; “Trade And The Environment In Pacific Rim Nations”, American Bar Association, Standing Committee on Environmental Law, Washington, DC, 1994; Research Report to Thailand’s Law Reform Committee on Development of The Legislation on the Continental Shelf and the Exclusive Economic Zone (in Thai), Bangkok, 1995; “Practical Difficulties for the International Criminal Court to Overcome”, in: Proceedings of the 6th Annual Conference of the Australia-New Zealand Society of International Law, Canberra: Australian National University, June 1998; “International Legal Order in a Changing World”, in: Proceedings of the International Law Association-Australia/New Zealand Society of International Law Conference: Wellington, July 1999; “The NATO Military Action and the Potential Impact of the International Criminal Court”, 4 Singapore Journal of International and Comparative Law, 2000; International Criminal Law, Oxford UP, 2001; “A Code of Conduct for Human and Regional Security around the South China Sea”, 32 Ocean Development & International Law 131, 2001; “International Criminal Law”, in the Diplomatic Training Programme Manual, University of New South Wales, Feb. 2002; “A century of challenges for international law”, Brazilian Society of International Law Bulletin – Centenary Edition, December 2017; Public International Law of Cyberspace, Springer 2017; The Obligation to Extradite or Prosecute, Oxford UP, March 2018; 'International Humanitarian Law and the Asia-Pacific struggles for national liberation’ in Asia-Pacific Perspectives on International Humanitarian Law (eds. Suzannah Linton, Tim McCormack and Sandesh Sivakumaran), Cambridge University Press, 2019; International Human Rights Law and Diplomacy, Edward Elgar Publishing, 2020; The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, Oxford UP, 2021; "The Law of the Sea and a Holistic Approach to Combating IUU Fishing" in Law of the Sea and Transdisciplinarity Vol. II, Wagner Menezes, Paulo Henrique Reis de Oliveira and Bárbara Mourão Sachett (eds), Arraes Editores, 2021; and The Rohingya, Justice and International Law, Routledge, 2021; “Juridicalization of the Sea: A Judge’s View”, 115 AJIL Unbound 378, 2021; ‘The Role of Negotiations and Diplomacy in Encouraging State Implementation of Human Rights’ in Research Handbook on Implementation of Human Rights in Practice (eds. Rachel Murray and Debra Long) Edward Elgar Publishing 2022.
