ASIA PACIFIC OCEAN LAW INSTITUTIONS ALLIANCE (APOLIA)

In 2012, Professor ZOU Keyuan of Lancashire Law School and with appointment at Zhejiang University Guanghua Law School and Professor Seokwoo LEE of Inha University Law School, began to discuss the creation of a new academic organization that would focus its attention on ocean law and policy issues in the Asia-Pacific. The organization was named the Asia Pacific Ocean Law Institutions Alliance (APOLIA) and would be a hybrid organization that would include both institutional and individual participation and associations. After the first official meeting in Incheon, Korea in 2013, the organizers invited Professors Clive SCHOFIELD and Warwick GULLET of Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS) of the University of Wollongong to join as co-founders. APOLIA has moved forward to establish a book series entitled Maritime Cooperation in East Asia (MCEA) with Professor Seokwoo LEE and Professor ZOU Keyuan serving as general editors published by Brill, the highly respected and longstanding publisher of international law manuscripts and periodicals.

Another important fruit of APOLIA’s endeavors is an exciting new initiative: the Asia-Pacific Journal of Ocean Law and Policy (APJOLP). The launch of this new, scholarly, peer-reviewed journal recognises the increasing importance of ocean spaces to the Asia-Pacific region– the most dynamic region globally. Not only are the maritime spaces of the Asia-Pacific of great and growing significance to the states of the region, but they are also increasingly contested and under threat. This gives rise to escalating oceans governance challenges. The core objective of the journal is to provide a scholarly forum where these issues can be discussed and analyzed.

The journal is published by Brill on a bi-annual basis. Each issue of the journal includes three to four scholarly articles together with state practice and current legal developments sections. Professor Seokwoo LEE and Professor Clive SCHOFIELD serve as Co-Editors-in-Chief; the state practice section of the journal is edited by Professor Anastasia TELESETSKY of the University of Idaho; and the current legal developments section is the responsibility of Professor Warwick GULLETT of the University of Wollongong.