Luminaries driving change: Distinguished Professor Stuart Kaye

Distinguished Professor Stuart Kaye is one of Australia’s leading international lawyers. He is also the Director and Professor of Law within the Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS) at the University of Wollongong, where researchers from law, social and environmental sciences, collaborate with national governments and community stakeholders to bring about legislative, regulatory and management changes, and develop community-based management plans that safeguard local fish stocks.

“Fish account for between 15 and 20 percent of world protein intake for around half of humanity. With world fish consumption rising 122% between 1990 and 2017, and an increasing proportion of world fish stocks being overfished, the consequences of climate change and the potential ramifications, food security and social stability the importance of sustainable fisheries management cannot be overstated,” says D/Prof Kaye.

As Director of ANCORS, D/Prof Kaye has helped grow the only multidisciplinary university-based centre of its type in the Southern Hemisphere, with over 25 academic staff and an international reputation in ocean law and policy. 

“I have had the great privilege and pleasure to build ANCORS into the largest, by academic staff numbers, university -based ocean law and policy research centre in the world . That growth has been based upon ensuring our research outputs have practical significance, and improve the lives of Australians and people across the wider world,” he says.

“For five years as Faculty Dean and seven as Director, I have played a key role in fostering ANCORS ’ growth, attracting high quality academic staff and creating a research environment conducive to capacity -building and researcher development.”

Over the period 2015 -2019, ANCORS staff secured research grants worth in excess of $13 million – on this measure alone, ANCORS achieved funding income on par with Melbourne Law School, with around one tenth of the academic staff.

D/Prof Kaye is seen as the premier researcher worldwide in ocean governance, as a driver of intellectual discussion into ocean affairs, and as the facilitator of solutions on how we manage the world's oceans. He has written a number of books, including Australia's Maritime Boundaries (2001), The Torres Strait (1997), International Fisheries Management (2001), Freedom of Navigation in the Indo-Pacific Region and over 100 other book chapters, articles and reports.

“My own research is principally directed at the regulation and management of the world’s oceans, including maritime jurisdiction, fisheries management and maritime security.”

In the past two decades he has been regularly consulted by Federal, state and overseas governments across a range of law of the sea and maritime jurisdiction issues. This has included appearing as counsel before the High Court of Australia, delivering a keynote address at the annual UN Informal Consultative Process. 

“My future efforts will be spent further building capacity and expertise, with the aim of placing ANCORS at the forefront internationally of diplomatic and academic law and policy efforts to respond to climate change and ocean management. Therefore placing Australia at the vanguard of all aspects of fisheries research, scientific and social”, he says.

Humanity is reliant on the health of the world’s oceans, and D/Prof Stuart Kaye and the ANCORS team are doing everything in their power to protect it.

To find out more about D/Prof Stuart Kaye take a look at his Scholars profile

About ANCORS