University of Portsmouth

Faculty Member, School of Law

Other Affiliations: University of Dundee, Honorary Professorial Fellow, Centre for Energy, Petroleum, Mineral Law and Policy
ICC Institute of World Business Law, Paris, Council Member
The Institute of Transnational Arbitration, U.S.A., Academic Council Member

Professor of International and Business Law

School of Law, University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom

About

Professor Maniruzzaman is Chair in International and Business Law, University of Portsmouth, UK. (2004 - ). He is the founding Professor of Law and Director of Research & Postgraduate Research Degrees, Portsmouth School of Law. He is also Honorary Professorial Fellow at the Centre of Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law & Policy (CEPMLP), University of Dundee, Scotland (2005-).

Before moving to the Chair at the University of Portsmouth, he taught at Kent Law School, University of Kent, UK, as a Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in Law (1993-2004). He also taught for a while at the Faculty of Law, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.

He received his PhD (International Law) from the University of Cambridge, U.K.; M. Int'l. Law (Distinction) from the Australian National University; LLM (first class first) and LLB (Honours)(first class first) from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He also attended public & private international law courses at The Hague Academy of International Law (received certificates, 1985 & 1987) and attended the Centre for Studies and Research in International Law and International Relations, The Hague Academy of International Law (received Certificate of Merit, 1987).

He has published four books and about seventy papers including articles and reviews.

He has been a Visiting Professor of Law (International Commercial Arbitration), Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario, Canada (2007-2008) and has also held honorary visiting academic positions at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Dundee, Kent and London. He was appointed a Visiting Scholar (1988-89) under the mentorship of Professor Detlev Vagts, Bemis Professor of International Law, at Harvard Law School (not taken up).

He worked as a Research Fellow at the Hague Academy of International Law, The Netherlands. He is an elected Council Member of the ICC Institute of World Business Law, Paris; Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, London; member of the International Law Association (ILA) & British and Bangladesh ILA branches; ILA International Committee on International Commercial Arbitration, and also a member of IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Commission on Environmental Law and its two Specialist Groups(i.e, Human Rights and the Environment & Energy Law and Climate Change). He is a founding member of the IDR GROUP (international dispute resolution specialists), based at the Lamb Chambers, London. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, London; the Swiss Arbitration Association; International Arbitration Institute, Paris; Advisory Board and Academinc Council Member, the Institute of Transnational Arbitration (ITA), USA; the European Court of Arbitration, and also served as a member of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN), Houston, USA. He is a member of the Bangladesh Bar (1981 - ), the Bangladesh Supreme Court Bar Association, Dhaka (1985 - ) and has practised as an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh (since 1983).

He is a member of various learned societies including the Society of Legal Scholars, U.K., where he has served as a Council Member since 2004.

He was offered the position of a Legal Adviser (International Law & International Organizations affairs) at the Ministry of State for Legal Affairs, State of Bahrain, 1993 (not taken up); He was also offered the position of a Legal Adviser (Special), Economic & Legal Section, Special Advisory Services Division, the Commonwealth Secretariat, London, 2009 (not taken up). 

He has worked as an international arbitration law expert/consultant in some high-profile ICSID and ICC cases and also as an International Legal Consultant to governments, state-owned enterprises, multinational corporations and mutlinational Law firms. For instance, he has recently acted as an international legal consultant to the Commonwealth Secretariat, London (HQ) and to some Asian and African governments for their exploration and exploitation of oil, gas, energy, mineral and natural resources (diamond, gold, uranium, base-metals, etc.), and drafted and negotiated international petroleum and mining contracts for them with multinational oil and mining companies.

His consultancy work includes drafting and negotiation of dispute settlement clauses, including arbitration clauses, clauses concerning valuation of petroleum, various aspects of international joint venture and production sharing contracts in minerals, oil and gas exploration & exploitation, interpretation of various contractual clauses of various international economic development contracts / State contracts, international commercial contracts, interpretation and application of bilateral investment protection treaties, advice on public policy issues and international arbitration, ICSID and ICC provisions, and matters of dispute settlement procedures, and in the wider area of international foreign investment law and international business transactions.

He is on the roster of the qualified arbitrators of the Dubai International Arbitration Centre, amongst others.
 
He has been Editor, Consultant Editor and on the International Editorial/Advisory Boards of a number of reputable international legal periodicals including MJIEL , OGEL , TDM. He has extensively published in the areas of International Law, International Business Law, International Energy Law, International Investment Law and International Commercial Arbitration & Dispute Resolution. His research project on stability in international energy contracts  commissioned by the AIPN is published on the AIPN website and also published in the Journal of World Energy Law and Business , Oxford University Press, 2008.

He is listed in some of the world’s well-known and prestigious biographies such as Marquis Who's Who in the World 2011 (28th Edition), Dictionary of International Biography 2011 (36th  Edition), published by International Biographical Centre (Cambridge, England) as well as Who’s Who in Public International Law (founded by Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, Cambridge University), published in the International Year Book and Statesmen’s Who’s Who, 2011 (58th Edition).

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