Rhidian Thomas

  • thomas photoRhidian Thomas is Emeritus Professor of Maritime Law and Founder Director of the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law, School of Law, Swansea University, Wales, UK. Previously he held academic positions at Cardiff University and the University of East Anglia in the UK. He has taught at several overseas universities, including the University of Windsor, Canada, National University of Singapore, University of Lund and World Maritime University, and currently is visiting professor at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. In the academic year 2011-2012 he was appointed to the national Francqui Chair at the University of Leuven, Belgium.

    He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Maritime Law, and a member of the editorial board of Shipping & Trade Law. He is also a member of Comite Maritime International (and of the International Working Group on marine insurance), British Maritime Law Association, Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and British Insurance Law Association.

    His principal teaching and research interests are in the fields of maritime and shipping law, marine insurance law, international trade law and commercial arbitration. He is the author and editor of many books and has contributed widely to academic and professional journals. His recent publications include co-editing and contributing to Shipping, Law and the Marine Environment in the 21st Century (2013, Lawtext Publishing, UK); Laytime and demurrage – contractual concepts in a state of flux (2014) 20 Journal of International Maritime Law 183, and Dimensions on the Concept of Inherent Vice as an excluded Peril in Marine Insurance, in Selected Issues in Marine Law and Policy ed Mejia (2013 Nova Science Publishers, New York).

    He is a frequent speaker at conferences and seminars, and also acts as an expert witness and consultant.