Travel and Learning Award for Joanna Mossop
Supporting Joanna Mossop to travel to New York to attend PrepCom3.
Borrin Foundation Travel and Learning Award
Joanna’s plan
Professor Joanna Mossop (Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington) specialises in the international law of the sea. She has written on issues such as maritime security, oceans governance, dispute settlement and the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles. From 2018, Joanna was an independent academic observer and adviser to the New Zealand delegation that negotiated the Agreement on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement), which was finalised in 2023. She has written widely about the Agreement, and is the co-editor of a book providing commentary and analysis of the Agreement which was published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in late 2025. She has been invited by governments and organisations to present at academic conferences and capacity-building workshops on the Agreement. Joanna is a member of several editorial boards, has held leadership positions in the Australia New Zealand Society of International Law, and has won teaching and research excellence awards from Victoria University of Wellington. Her 2016 book, The Continental Shelf beyond 200 Nautical Miles (OUP) was jointly awarded the JF Northey Memorial Book Prize. In 2019 the New Zealand government nominated her to the list of arbitrators and conciliators under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
About Joanna
Professor Joanna Mossop (Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington) specialises in the international law of the sea. She has written on issues such as maritime security, oceans governance, dispute settlement and the continental shelf beyond 200 nautical miles. From 2018, Joanna was an independent academic observer and adviser to the New Zealand delegation that negotiated the Agreement on Marine Biodiversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ Agreement), which was finalised in 2023. She has written widely about the Agreement, and is the co-editor of a book providing commentary and analysis of the Agreement which was published by Oxford University Press (OUP) in late 2025. She has been invited by governments and organisations to present at academic conferences and capacity-building workshops on the Agreement. Joanna is a member of several editorial boards, has held leadership positions in the Australia New Zealand Society of International Law, and has won teaching and research excellence awards from Victoria University of Wellington. Her 2016 book, The Continental Shelf beyond 200 Nautical Miles (OUP) was jointly awarded the JF Northey Memorial Book Prize. In 2019 the New Zealand government nominated her to the list of arbitrators and conciliators under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Grant Amount
$8,855 in 2026 to support travel
“My involvement in the PrepCom meeting will help me continue with the work that I have begun. The ability to be in the corridors of the discussions, to provide advice and support to a range of actors, is an incredible privilege. My physical presence in the room helps me understand the issues in ways that following the proceedings from afar cannot achieve.”