Robert C. Steenkamp

University of Hamburg | UHH · School of Law

Twenty-nine States (the ‘Consultative Parties’), each with a substantial interest in Antarctica, collectively manage Antarctica through a system of consensus-based decisions. Traditionally, the Antarctic Treaty together with recommendations and measures adopted by the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meetings (ATCM), the Convention on the Conservation...

Climate change arguably constitutes one of the greatest risks to the long-term health of the world’s environment. In 2015, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) highlighted that the Earth’s climate system has consistently been warming since the 1950s and that a “large fraction of anthropogenic climate change resulting from CO 2 emiss...

The part of the seabed and subsoil that is beyond national jurisdiction (hereafter, the Area) is regulated by Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) as well as by the 1994 Implementation Agreement. The regime of deep seabed mining (DSM) in the Area foresees three phases: prospecting, exploration and exploitation. Th...

On 26 December 2018, Japan announced that it would withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and indicated its intention to begin commercial whaling for the first time in 30 years. Despite the ethical and political outcry from States, the legal ramifications of Japan’s withdrawal requires further analysis. This article examines the r...

The Common Fisheries Policy ( CFP ) of the European Union is legally, politically and environmentally of great importance. However, the effectiveness of old regimes to respond to contemporary developments poses several potential challenges to the CFP . This article aims to identify some of these external challenges by highlighting the differing int...

The 4th Hamburg International Environmental Law Conference (HIELC) took place from 4-5 April 2019 with the overarching topic "Of Ships and of Shores, of Ports and of Profits - Responsible Maritime Governance". Like the 3rd HIELC in 2016, which addressed the topic "A Sea Change for Sustainable Ocean Resource Governance", the 4th HIELC focused on oce...

In October 2018, the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) concluded that Japan had failed to comply with certain CITES provisions regarding the trade in Appendix I species (namely, sei whales). This short piece evaluates the relationship that such a conclusion could have on Japan...