Dr. Vishal Surbun is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law and the Unit for Maritime Law and Maritime Studies. He has lectured the Maritime Law module on the LL.B programme for the past decade. This is one of the most popular elective modules and has been a nursery for students to develop an interest in maritime law, some of whom progress to read for postgraduate qualifications in Maritime Law and practise in this specialist field. He is a founding faculty member of the Unit for Maritime Law and Maritime Studies and he supervised the Unit’s first graduates. He facilitates the Incidents of Navigation module on the LL.M program in Maritime Law with seminars on: Shipwreck, salvage, ship collisions, courts of marine enquiry, maritime safety and security and places of refuge for ships in distress. He supervises LL.M and Ph.D students of the Unit.
His research interest lies in the field of the Law of the Sea, particularly maritime jurisdiction, maritime security and African regional maritime policy. Vishal has acted as an expert peer reviewer for the South African Law Journal, The South African Yearbook of International Law and for publications of the Institute for Security Studies and the CSIR. He is also a regular external examiner for Maritime Law and the Law of the Sea related postgraduate programs of the University of Cape Town, Nelson Mandela University and the University of Pretoria.
