Craig Forrest

Craig Forrest is a Professor of Law and Director of the Marine and Shipping Law Unit, Professor Forrest teaches and undertakes research in maritime law, private international law and cultural heritage law. He has published widely in these areas and contributed directly to national and international public policy developments and directly to the drafting of national legislation and international law. Most recently, Professor Forrest has completed a World Bank financed project on the future of the Marshall Islands Ship Registry with a research team drawn from Columbia University, University College London and the University of the South Pacific.

Professor Forrest has a long association with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO). Between 1998 and 2000, he was a member of the South African delegation to UNESCO and has undertaken a number of activities and consultancies for UNESCO, including: acting as an independent advisor to UNESCO regional cultural meetings in Solomon Islands, Cambodia, St.Kitts and Nevis, Indonesia and Antigua and Barbuda; together with the UNESCO secretariate, drafting a Model Law for the implementation of the UNESCO UCH convention for the Caribbean States; completing a UNESCO consultancy with Dr Bill Jeffery (University of Guam) on the protection of underwater cultural heritage in the States of Micronesia and, together with Major Projects Foundation, undertaking a national Interest Analysis and Gap study on the protection of underwater cultural heritage in Solomon Islands (2012), Marshall Islands (2022) and Fiji (2023). Professor Forrest is an Australian representative on the International Law Association's Committee on Safeguarding Cultural Heritage in Armed Conflict and a member of the International Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) International Committee on Underwater Cultural Heritage. Professor Forrest is also a Federal Attorney-General appointed Australian correspondent to the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (Rome).

Professor Forrest is the general editor of the Australian and New Zealand Maritime Law Journal, and on the editorial boards of the World Maritime University Journal of Maritime Affairs, Journal of Ocean Law and Governance in Africa and the International Maritime and Commercial Law Yearbook.

Professor Forrest has held visiting research and teaching positions at Cambridge University, National University of South Korea, City University of Hong Kong, Dalhousie University and University of Nottingham (the latter as a Universitas 21 Fellow). Before turning to the law, Professor Forrest served as a naval officer in the South African Navy.