Together with the Law of the Sea Institute (LOSI) organization, the Harte Research Institute hosted an invitational workshop-style  conference called "Law of the Sea in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean: Unresolved Issues and Challenges" held March 22-24, 2007, at HRI's facilities in Corpus Christi, Texas.

LOSI is an international consortium of scholars that has played a major part in the development of ocean law since the early 1970s. Headquartered at the Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley, LOSI holds international conferences on selected ocean law and policy topics.

Dr. Richard McLaughlin, one of the three endowed chairs at the HRI and a leading figure in the international ocean law community, will be heading up this year's conference. McLaughlin is well suited to run such an event, as his main focus of research for the past 20 years has been coastal and marine policy and law. He is on LOSI's board of advisors and has attended several of their conferences in recent years. Last year he made a presentation at the LOSI conference in Seoul, South Korea.

The main goal for the conferences is to understand and assist in the progressive development of international law of the sea.
   Both the Law of the Sea Institute organization and its annual conventions are a result of a UN Treaty called the International Law of the Sea Convention which was finalized in 1982.

The treaty had a profound effect on McLaughlin, who was just starting out in law school when the treaty was finalized. "It is the foundation of how we order our ocean areas. Everything that occurs in the world's oceans is in someway impacted by the Law of the Sea Treaty."

What is law of the sea? All of the laws relating to economic activities and environmental protection of the world's oceans.

The conference was comprised of approximately 40 invited panel participants including: judges from the International Law of the Sea Tribunal, leading scholars from U.S. and international universities, government officials from several nations, representatives from leading NGOs, and leaders from the U.S. and Mexican energy industry.

For more information, please contact Dr McLaughlin at (361) 825-2010 or visit the HRI's Law of the Sea Institute Conference 2007 website.