Tutors

Mr Songchai Chaipatiyut, Deputy Director-General of the Department of Treaties and Legal Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand is a Thai career diplomat and legal adviser. Songchai has experience in land and sea boundary negotiations between Thailand and neighbouring countries and was on the legal team of many negotiations since 1999. During 2020-2021, in his capacity as Director of the Boundary Division, he served as Secretary to all five land and sea boundary bilateral joint commissions/committees between Thailand and her neighbours. He was also assigned, during 2011-2012, to Thailand’s legal team for a case at the International Court of Justice, the Request for Interpretation of the Judgment of 15 June 1962 concerning the Temple of Preah Vihear (Cambodia v. Thailand) (Cambodia v. Thailand). Apart from the boundary negotiations, Songchai was also responsible for other questions of public international law.  He was recently Head of the Thai Delegation to the 4^th and 5^th Intergovernmental Conferences on an international legally binding instrument under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction: BBNJ IGC). Songchai has been assigned to overseas postings in Cambodia (2003-2007), Austria (2009-2011) and Italy (2016-2018). He was Director of East Asia II Division, Department of East Asian Affairs during 2018-2020.

Mr. Sophearin Chea, Chief River Basin Planner at the Mekong River Commission Secretariat, is the lead technical staff of the Planning Division. In particular, he leads the work on Mekong river basin development planning, including the preparation, update, and implementation support to the IWRM-based Basin Development Strategy and its linkage to other basin-wide sector strategies, the implementation of MRC Procedures in close consultation with the lead technical staff of other MRCS Divisions. Sophearin has more than 20 years of combined professional experience in water resources management, international affairs and diplomacy, development cooperation and civil engagement across national, regional and international levels with MoFA, Cambodia, World Bank, NGO Consortium, ASEAN Secretariat and MRCS. He has engagement experience with diverse stakeholders and high-level knowledge and understandings of socio-political spares in the Mekong countries, in policy, strategic and project planning and implementation. Prior to this position, he was also working as Regional Water Policy Consultant in the MRC Secretariat. He was Civil Society Coordinator and Expert on Social Accountability for the World Bank from 2015 to 2019 He was also with the MRC Secretariat as Program Officer for MRC’s Procedures and Policies from 2010 to 2015. From 2002 to 2010, he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of Cambodia in-charge of bilateral cooperation between Cambodia and other ASEAN countries, and some sub-regional groupings namely CLV, CLMV and ACMECS. He received his Bachelor of Law and a High-Ranking Civil Servant Diploma in Diplomacy in Cambodia, and a Master of International Affairs from Australian National University.

Dr Riley ‘Cody’ Denoon, Barrister and Solicitor, British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, has extensive litigation experience. He holds a Doctorate in public international law specializing in international water resources, obtained under the supervision of Prof. Stephen McCaffrey the former special rapporteur to the International Law Commission on the subject of the non-navigational uses of international watercourse. He currently practices in international law as a lawyer and consultant.

Riley has worked with the UN, such as UNESCO’s International Hydrological Programme (IHP) and Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) Unit, as well as with national governments, NGOs, local stakeholders, and private clients. He has worked before various courts and tribunals including as a legal advisor to Chile in the case concerning the dispute over the status and use of the waters of the Silala (Chile v. Bolivia) before the International Court of Justice.

His current areas of work, publication, and research center on the law of transboundary freshwater resources, public international law, international environmental law, international dispute resolution, indigenous rights, local stakeholder engagement, nature-based solutions (NBS), and safeguard policies of multilateral investment banks. He was also a co-editor of the Research Handbook on International Water Law (Edward Elgar Pub, 2019).

He has taught courses and conducted trainings, including in the areas of international law, water resources law, international dispute resolution, and stakeholder engagement.

Professor Martin Pratt, Director, Bordermap Consulting, is an internationally-respected expert in boundary-making, border management and territorial dispute resolution, with thirty years' experience working with governments, international organisations, businesses, scholars and practitioners around the world to resolve and prevent boundary-related conflict. He has advised numerous governments on the definition and management of river boundaries, and was the lead author of the African Union Border Programme's River Boundaries Guidebook (2021).

Martin worked at IBRU from 1994-2015 and he remains an Honorary Professor in Geography at Durham University. He has been involved in leading IBRU’s professional workshop programme since its inception in 1996, missing only one of seventy-three workshops to date!

Professor Alan D. Ziegler, Faculty of Fisheries Technology and Aquatic Resources, Maejo University, Thailand,  is a physical geographer. His research focuses on the intersections of physical, ecological, and human systems, with a particular emphasis on water resources. He develops environmental monitoring programs to understand catchment processes, examining natural and human-induced variations across spatial and temporal scales. Ziegler seeks to explore new avenues in water resource management, environmental health, and hazard mitigation within the context of human-environment interaction. His interests lie addressing in water, energy, and food security issues, with an emphasis on assessing the risks faced by rural populations in developing regions to exposure to contaminated drinking water, waterborne pathogens, and natural hazards. This research necessitates extensive fieldwork and engagement with local communities. Ziegler approaches the work as a transdisciplinary endeavor, rooted in scientific principles and cultural nuances, to address complex environmental challenges.