Professional Affiliation

Principal, Baker Arctic Consulting

Expert Bio

Dr. Baker is an international lawyer based in Alaska. Her consulting work on ocean law and Arctic policy builds on 25+ years of experience as an author, consultant, law professor, and most recently as director of an Alaska-based marine science funding organization, the North Pacific Research Board. Her work has informed policymakers nationally and internationally on issues ranging from offshore oil and gas regulation and indigenous participation in resource decisions to international cooperation in the Arctic Ocean. She is a member of the Polar Research Board of the National Academies of Sciences, and SEARCH - the Study of Environmental Arctic Change. Following an Alexander von Humboldt Chancellors Fellowship in Kiel, working for over a decade in Germany grounded her law of the sea scholarship in multinational perspectives and led to her ongoing work with marine scientists, policymakers, and managers active in the Arctic. A graduate of Michigan and Kiel law faculties, she has taught international law and organization at Minnesota, Harvard, and Vermont law schools.

Wilson Center Project

Arctic Ocean Governance

Project Summary

Dr. Baker will examine a range of issues including the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as a Foundation for Resolving Differences over Arctic Shipping; Implementing the Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement (CAOFA): Best practices of International and Domestic Fisheries Regimes regarding Scientific Bodies and Ecosystem-Based Management; and Overlapping Continental Shelf Claims in the Arctic: Peaceful Resolution through Science, Diplomacy, and Law.

Major Publications

 

"Resource Rights in the Continental Shelf and Beyond: Why the Law of the Sea Convention Matters to Mineral Law," Proceedings of the 64th Annual Rocky Mountain Mineral Law Institute (2018) 2-1 to 2-31 (with Catherine Danley)

 

"ICES, PICES and the Arctic Council Task Force on Arctic Marine Cooperation: Lessons from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea and the North Pacific Marine Science Organization," in University of California Irvine Law Review, vol. 6 (2016) 101-121

 

"Coordinated Ocean Stewardship and Management in the Arctic: Needs, Challenges and Possible Models for an Arctic Ocean Coordinating Agreement" (with Brooks Yeager), 4:1 Transnational Environmental Law (2015), 359-39