National University of Singapore

Brief Biodata

Dr Stephen Girvin has been Professor of Law at NUS since October 2008 and Vice Dean (Research) since July 2010. He has held faculty positions at the University of Aberdeen, the University of Nottingham, NUS, and latterly the University of Birmingham, where he held a Chair in Maritime Law from 2006-2008. He has held positions as Visiting Professor at the University of Cape Town and at the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland, and as a Parsons Fellow at the University of Sydney.

Stephen's principal expertise is in the field of commercial maritime (shipping) law, although his interests also extend beyond this to the broader field of international commercial law and company law and partnership law. He retains a residual interest in legal history, particularly colonial legal history, the focus of his graduate work at masters and doctoral level.

In the commercial maritime field, Stephen is sole author of Carriage of Goods by Sea (Oxford University Press), the first edition of which appeared in 2007 and the second published in July 2011. He has also contributed book chapters to D Rhidian Thomas (ed), A New Convention for the Carriage of Goods by Sea: The Rotterdam Rules (Lawtext, 2009), and D Rhidian Thomas (ed), Liability Regimes in Contemporary Maritime Law (Informa, 2007). He is a founding member of the Editorial Committee of the International Maritime and Commercial Law Yearbook, which is published as part of Lloyd's Maritime & Commercial Law Quarterly (Informa). Stephen is also a member of the Editorial Board of the Aegean Review of the Law of the Sea and Maritime Law (Springer). He is currently engaged as a contributing author in writing the 14th edition of Marsden's Collisions at Sea (Thomson/Sweet & Maxwell) and as sole author in the 8th edition of the leading work, Temperley on the Merchant Shipping Acts (Thomson/Sweet & Maxwell), the last edition of which appeared in 1976.

In the company law field, Stephen is principal editor and author of Charlesworth's Company Law 18th ed (Thomson/Sweet & Maxwell, 2010). He was a contributing author to the 17th edition of this work. Stephen is also a contributing author of Palmer's Company Law Annotated Guide to the Companies Act 2006 (Thomson/Sweet & Maxwell, 2007). He has, moreover, been for more than ten years an editor of Palmer's Company Law (Thomson/Sweet & Maxwell), which provides comprehensive coverage in the field of UK company law.

Stephen speaks regularly at international and regional conferences and colloquia, in recent years in Seoul and Sydney, in Rotterdam and Tokyo, and in Hamburg, where he was speaker at the International Congress of Maritime Arbitrators.

Stephen is a member of the Singapore Maritime Law Association (SMLA) and the British Maritime Law Association (BMLA) and a Supporting Member of the London Maritime Arbitrators Association (LMAA). He serves as an observer to the Singapore Shipping Association's Legal & Insurance Committee and also acts from time to time as a consultant in maritime and commercial matters.