Anna Petrig, a Swiss citizen, holds the Chair of International Law and Public Law at the University of Basel (Switzerland). She obtained her law degree (summa cum laude, mention droit européen) from the Université de Fribourg (Switzerland), holds a PhD (summa cum laude) in the field of the law of the sea and human rights law from the University of Basel, and was awarded her LL.M. from Harvard Law School where she studied as a Fulbright Scholar. Professor Petrig is a member of the Bar of the Canton of Berne (Switzerland) and the New York State Bar (USA).
Before taking up her Chair at the University of Basel, Anna Petrig was a professor at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and a researcher at, inter alia, the Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law in Lund (Sweden) and the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law in Freiburg (Germany) where she initiated and managed the Sea Piracy Project. Her broad legal experience includes work in private practice, the courts, and the Legal Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva.
Professor Petrig is the author of various monographs, notably pertaining to the law of the sea as well as international human rights law, general public international law and criminal law (see, e.g., Anna Petrig, Human Rights and Law Enforcement at Sea, Brill-Nijhoff 2014; Robin Geiss & Anna Petrig, Piracy and Armed Robbery at Sea, Oxford University Press 2011). Her articles and book chapters cover a wide range of ocean-related topics; she is also the co-founder and co-editor in chief of the Maritime Safety and Security Law Journal.
Professor Petrig has provided expert advice and legal counsel on maritime-related matters to the Swiss Government, NGOs, international organizations and other international fora, notably on the registration of ships, the use of private security companies at sea, and the protection of underwater cultural heritage. She also served as a member of the Swiss Delegation to the International Maritime Organization. Anna Petrig was sitting as judge ad hoc for Switzerland before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in the M/T “San Padre Pio” Case (Switzerland v. Nigeria), Provisional Measures. Professor Petrig has presented on law of the sea matters at universities and research institutes across Europe and in Japan; and has been invited to discuss her research at, inter alia, the International Maritime Organization, the NATO Centre of Excellence for Operations in Confined and Shallow Waters, the Montreux Document Forum, and the United Nations Human Rights Council Intergovernmental Working Group on Private Military and Security Companies. She has participated in various international research projects related to maritime matters as a researcher and as a member of advisory and ethics boards. Professor Petrig currently acts as a board member of the Swiss Maritime Law Association.