BA (Ankara), LLM, PhD (Southampton), Director of the IISTL
Professor Soyer was appointed to Swansea as a Lecturer in 2001 (having previously taught at Exeter Law School); he was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2004, Reader in 2006 and Chair in 2009. His postgraduate education was in the University of Southampton from where he obtained his PhD in 2000. He is currently the Director of the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law, with a principal research interest in the field of insurance, particularly marine insurance, and also has interests broadly throughout maritime and commercial law.
He is the author of Warranties in Marine Insurance (2001), which won the Cavendish Book Prize in 2001 and was awarded the British Insurance Law Association Book Prize in 2002 for the best contribution to insurance literature. The second edition of this book, published in 2006, was instrumental in steering law reform in this area, and was cited extensively by the English and Scottish Law Commissions in their reports which led to the Insurance Act 2015. Professor Soyer also published another monograph, Marine Insurance Fraud, in 2014. This book was also awarded the British Insurance Law Association Book Prize in 2015 making Professor Soyer the only author who won this prestigious Prize twice. In addition, he has published extensively in the main journals in his field, including the Law Quarterly Review, Cambridge Law Journal, Lloyd’s Maritime & Commercial Law Quarterly, the Journal of Business Law, the Journal of Contract Law, Journal of International Maritime Law, the Berkeley Journal of International Law, Transnational Environment Law, the Journal of Maritime Law and the Commerce, Edinburgh Law Review and Torts Law Journal. He is editor and contributor to Reforming Marine and Commercial Insurance Law (Informa, 2008), Pollution at Sea: Law and Liability (Informa, 2012); Carriage of Goods by Sea, Land and Air (Informa, 2013), Offshore Contracts and Liabilities (Informa, 2014), Ship Building, Sales and Finance (Informa, 2015), International Trade and Carriage of Goods (Informa, 2016), Charterparties: Law, Practice and Emerging Issues (Informa, 2017) Maritime Liabilities in a Global and Regional Context (Informa, 2018), New Technologies, Artificial Intelligence and Shipping Law in 21st Century (Informa, 2019) New Technologies, Artificial Intelligence and Shipping Law in 21st Century (Informa, 2020), Ship Operations: New Risks, Liabilities and Technologies in Maritime Sector (Informa Law, 2021), Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Shipping: Developing the International Legal Framework (Hart Publishing, 2021), Disruptive Technologies, Climate Change and Shipping (Informa Law, 2022), Damages, Recoveries and Remedies in Shipping Law (Informa Law, 2023), and contributed to leading texts in the field such as Marine Insurance: The Law in Transition (2006), Liability Regimes in Contemporary Maritime Law (2007), Legal Issues relating to Time Charterparties (2008), Modern Law of Marine Insurance Volumes 2, 3, 4 and 5 (2002, 2009, 2015 and 2022).
His teaching experience extends to the undergraduate and postgraduate levels, including postgraduate teaching of Carriage of Goods by Sea, Charterparties: Law and Practice, Transnational Commercial Law, Marine Insurance, Oil and Gas Law and Admiralty Law. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of International Maritime Law, Shipping and Trade Law and Baltic Maritime Law Quarterly and editorial committee of International Maritime and Commercial Law Yearbook. He has academic links with many institutions overseas and is a visiting professor at Lorraine University (France), National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece), Shanghai Maritime University (PR China), Jimei University (PR China) and Dalian Maritime University (PR China).
He currently teaches Charterparties: Law and Practice and Marine Insurance Law on the LLM programmes and is involved in the delivery of professional courses offered by the Institute of International Shipping and Trade Law.