Umut Yüksel is a postdoctoral researcher in the Global Governance Center and a visiting lecturer in the Department of International Relations/Political Science at the Graduate Institute, Geneva. In addition to teaching the compulsory introduction to statistical methods course, he is currently working on two research projects: The Domain of International Adjudication: Why Sovereign States Abandon Decision Control and Testing the Focal Point Theory of International Adjudication: An Empirical Analysis of the ICJ’s Impact on Maritime Delimitation. He obtained his PhD in International Relations/Political Science in 2019 with a PhD thesis entitled "Bargaining over Maritime Boundaries in Times of Legal Uncertainty" (summa cum laude). Prior to the completion of his PhD, Umut was a visiting researcher at Stanford University as a Swiss National Science Foundation fellow. In his PhD dissertation, he systematically examined how uncertainty in the law of the sea shaped the ways in which states contested and negotiated over their mutual maritime boundaries. Umut has been actively involved in data collection and analysis efforts on states' maritime boundary policies and interstate boundary making trajectories, as well as on international arbitration and adjudication over disputes ranging from sovereignty to international trade and investment disputes. His policy-related work on law of the sea matters was previously published in the National Interest and LSE Blog.

Latest project: The Domain of International Adjudication: Why Sovereign States Abandon Decision Control?

Timeline: 01.09.2019 - 31.08.2022