Board of Trustees

Matthew is CEO and Chief Ombudsman at Ombudsman Services (OS), the UK’s energy and communications ombudsman. OS’s work aims to embed fair business practices and build trust in key regulated markets.

Prior to joining Ombudsman Services in 2015, Matthew was chief executive at the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC), a non-departmental public body based in Edinburgh. He previously worked at the Foreign and Commonwealth office, serving as British Consul in Spain. His early career was in the private sector across retail and FMCG.

He completed a doctorate in the history of Victorian and Edwardian Liverpool at the University of Oxford and has previously held non-executive roles at Museums and Galleries Scotland and the Scottish Mediation Network.

 Matthew was elected the Chair of Trustees by her peers in March 2022.

Ruth was appointed Chief Executive of the LBMA in January 2014. She is an experienced CEO, Business Advisor and Non-Executive Director in Financial Services, Market Development and Regulatory Technology. Her primary achievement so far as LBMA CEO is the governance, commercial and transparency overhaul of the London precious metals market (~$15 trillion annual turnover). She is also a human rights expert responsible for creating the Responsible Gold Guidance, the industry’s leading ethical sourcing standard.

Alex is a solicitor and partner at HFW. He predominantly advises clients on the legal issues arising from casualty management and crisis response, including salvage, wreck removal, groundings, collisions, fires and piracy, with a particular interest in container ship casualties and war risk claims. Alex has extensive experience in marine insurance advising insurers, brokers and assured in relation to H&M, war, kidnap & ransom, increased value, cargo, builder’s risks, yacht and ports & terminals insurance policies.

Alex has spent time in Dubai and has undertaken a secondment to the legal department of an oil major and a London market insurer. Alex is an Associate Member of the Association of Average Adjusters. Alex has been named as a Next Generation Lawyer in the Legal 500 UK 2017, 2018 and 2019 and a next Generation Partner in the Legal 500 UK 2020.

Mitra is the EMEA lead for Social Impact Partnerships at Meta in London. She has 17 years of experience in international human rights and the rule of law. For most of her career, she has worked for the UN and Save the Children, in Africa, the Middle East, and South-East Asia, before joining the private sector in 2021. Mitra also brings strong expertise in partnership development and fundraising, primarily with bilateral and institutional partners. She holds two Masters Degrees in International and Human Rights law and an MBA. 

Helen is the Human Rights and Social Impact Lead at BP, based in London.  In this role, she leads on the human rights and wider social aspects of bp’s practice and their social sustainability framework, driving change to deliver on their five aims to ‘Improve People’s Lives’. Helen has worked at BP since 2014.  Prior to her current role, she was responsible for the development and management of BP’s Insider Threat Programme and had oversight of BP’s adherence to the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights (VPSHR), alongside supporting individual businesses in developing and implementing the principles. She served on the Steering Committee for the Voluntary Principles Initiative for 3 years and during that time worked across multiple workstreams on public, and private security force engagement, offshore security, in-country implementation of best practice and also built strong relationships across the corporate, civil society and government pillars.  She has also served as a co-Chair of the IPIECA Responsible Security Task Force for 4 years.  (She is recognised as a thought leader with a strong drive to improve the lives of the most vulnerable in society.)

Marika is an independent consultant and adviser who has worked with ASEAN-Australia Counter-Trafficking, the Regional Support Office of the Bali Process, Chatham House, IOM, OHCHR and UNODC, among others. She is the author of research reports and technical publications primarily on issues related to the international law on migrant smuggling, human trafficking, human rights and their intersections. Marika has worked in many regions, advising senators, parliamentarians and policymakers and delivering training to law enforcers, prosecutors and judges. She has spoken about human rights at sea at various international forums, particularly in the context of mixed migration flows, aggravated forms of migrant smuggling and human trafficking at sea. She has published a book titled Freedom from Religion and Human Rights Law with Routledge and holds a PhD in international human rights law.

Richard is the Managing Partner of Stavis Consulting, LLC. He was previously the CEO of Stavis Seafoods and is still very much an active as its founder. He is an internationally acknowledged seafood thought leader and innovator with over thirty-five years in the seafood community, functioning in executive, purchasing, sales, and sustainability roles.  This experience has given him insight into harvesting, farming, processing, and product standards. Over the last decade, his primary focus has been understanding, advocating for and applying best practices in sustainability, traceability, and ensuring responsible labour practices within the seafood supply chain. Additional current roles include Sustainable Fisheries Partnerships’ Squid Supplier Roundtable Industry Chairperson, Board Vice President and Treasurer of FishWise, and Advisory Committee member for the Seafood Alliance for Legality and Traceability (SALT).

Dr. Natalie Klein is a Professor at UNSW Sydney’s Faculty of Law & Justice, Australia, and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow. Professor Klein is currently the President of the Australian Branch of the International Law Association. She was previously at Macquarie University where she served as Dean of Macquarie Law School (2011-2017), as well as Acting Head of the Department for Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism at Macquarie (2013-2014). Professor Klein has been a Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at Cambridge University, a non-resident Fellow at the Lakshman Kadirgamar Institute in Sri Lanka and MacCormick Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to joining Macquarie, Professor Kleinworked in the international litigation and arbitration practice of Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, served as counsel to the Government of Eritrea (1998-2002) and was a consultant in the Office of Legal Affairs at the United Nations.  Her masters and doctorate in law were earned at Yale Law School and she is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law.

Dr. Aidan McQuade, OBE, is a writer and independent human rights consultant. He was director of Anti-Slavery International from 2006 to 2017. Prior to that he worked extensively in development and humanitarian operations, including from 1996 to 2001 leading Oxfam GB’s emergency responses to the civil war in Angola. He holds a PhD from the University of Strathclyde, and is a recognised expert on forced labour and trafficking on which he regularly advises businesses, international and non-governmental organisations. He is the author of two books: a novel, The Undiscovered Country; and Ethical Leadership: moral decision-making under pressure.

Professor Irini Papanicolopulu (PhD, University of Milan) is Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy), where she teaches and conducts research on public international law and the law of the sea. She has previously held academic positions at the University of Glasgow (UK) and the University of Oxford (UK) and has worked as a lawyer for the Italian Ministry of the Environment and a multinational company. Prof. Papanicolopulu conducts research and has published widely in international law, including among others law of the sea, delimitation of maritime boundaries, environmental law, international humanitarian law, human rights law and the protection of cultural heritage. She has been invited to academic and research institutions around the world, including the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (Germany), the International Maritime Law Institute (Malta), the Institute for Advanced Defence Studies (Italy), the Oxford International Law Course for Military Lawyers (UK), the Naval War College (US), and the San Remo International Institute of Humanitarian Law (Italy). She is the author of two monographs, including International Law and the Protection of People at Sea (OUP 2018), has edited several volumes, including Gender and the Law of the Sea (Brill 2019) and has authored numerous articles and book chapters. Her work spans different fields of public international law with a particular focus on law of the sea and oceans governance. Prof. Papanicolopulu has advised the Italian Ministry of foreign Affairs, other state entities and governmental and non-governmental organisations on issues of international law, law of the sea and the regulation of maritime activities. She currently acts as Convenor for the Law of the Sea interest group of the Italian Society of International Law (Società Italiana di Diritto Internazionale).

Steven Haines is an honorary trustee and Professor of Public International Law in the University of Greenwich. His research today is focused principally on Ocean Governance and the maintenance of safe and secure seas (although he continues to work in the fields of International Humanitarian Law and the law relating to international security). Prior to taking up his current post in Greenwich, he spent four years in Geneva, on the Management Board of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy. He also taught as adjunct faculty at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. From 2003 to 2008 he was at Royal Holloway, University of London, as founding Head of the Department of Politics and International Relations; he was appointed to a Chair in 2006. He has a strong record of pro bono work within international civil society organizations. In Geneva he worked with Geneva Call, the NGO that encourages compliance with International Humanitarian Law by armed non-state actors. Since 2011, he has acted as Legal and Military consultant to the Global Coalition to Protect Education from Attack, drafting International Guidelines on the Military Use of Schools in Conflict Zones (the core of the Safe Schools Declaration) that are now endorsed by almost 90 states globally. He joined Save the Children International’s Civil-Military Advisory Board in 2017, becoming its Chair in 2018. With a specialist legal interest in the Law of Armed Conflict Applicable at Sea, he was one of the peer reviewers for the International Committee of the Red Cross’s new Commentary on the Second Geneva Convention published in 2017. To Human Rights at Sea he brings not only his academic and civil society knowledge and experience but also over thirty years experience as a naval officer (from 1971 to 2003), He served at sea in a variety of surface warships, deploying to most of the world’s oceans as well as waters adjacent to the United Kingdom, and was involved in a range of maritime law enforcement roles, including as a British Sea Fisheries Officer. He also served for a total of eight years on the Naval and Central Policy Staffs in the Ministry of Defence, including on the Executive Board of the British Armed Forces’ strategic and doctrinal think-tank in Shrivenham (the JDCC, now the DCDC), having been the RN member of the MoD’s Strategic Development Study responsible for its establishment in 1999. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA), was elected a Fellow of the Nautical Institute (FNI) in 1995 and a Member of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law (Sanremo, Italy) in 2010. Most recently (2019), he was elected as President/Chair of the UK Group of the International Society for Military Law and the Laws of War.