Joanna Mossop is a professor at the Victoria University of Wellington School of Law and an expert in the international law of the sea. She has published widely on a range of issues including maritime security, dispute settlement, and the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles. In 2019 the New Zealand government nominated her to the list of arbitrators and conciliators under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. She is a member of boards of several international journals and the co-editor of the Brill monograph series Publications on Ocean Development.
David Freestone is a visiting scholar and former visiting professor at George Washington University Law School. He is Executive Secretary of the Sargasso Sea Commission established by the 2014 Hamilton Declaration on Collaboration for the Conservation of the Sargasso Sea. He is the founding editor of the International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law (now in its 40th year). From 1996-2008 he worked at the World Bank in Washington DC, first as head of the international law group, and from 2004-2008 as Deputy General Counsel/Senior Adviser. In 2007 he was awarded the Elizabeth Haub Gold Medal for Environmental Law.