August 10, 2023

Director Shibata engaging in 2023 North Pacific Arctic Conference organized by prestigious East-West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii

Director Shibata was invited to engage with government officials, scholars, experts and Indigenous representatives gathered for the North Pacific Arctic Conference, the theme for 2023 being “Arctic Governance: Steering Through Sea Changes and Charting New Courses”, 16-18 August 2023, jointly organized by Korea Maritime Institute (KMI) and East-West Center (EWC) of the United States of America. Director Shibata will make a presentation in a session on Arctic science diplomacy, bringing his expertise on treaty-based international scientific cooperation schemes, namely Arctic Science Cooperation Agreement and Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement, with a comparative analysis of the Antarctic Treaty system. For details of the Conference, please see the EWC website.

August 4, 2023

Antarctica Today seminar in Helsinki during 45th ATCM: YouTube Video now available

With Mr. Evan Bloom from Wilson Center, USA, Prof. Kees Bastmeijer, University of Groningen, and chaired by Prof. Timo Koivurova, University of Lapland, Director Shibata talks on the challenges facing the Antarctic governance and possible solutions. The seminar featured many prominent speakers on major environmental challenges in Antarctica, including marine conservation; Antarctic policy perspectives from the point of view of the foreign affairs community; Antarctic science challenges including climate change; and academic views on challenges the Treaty System has faced in the past 25 years. The Antarctic governance session starts around 1:43:00 of the YouTube video. Enjoy!

May 15, 2023

Director Shibata to speak at Antarctic Symposium held during Helsinki ATCM on May 29 !

The 45th Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) will be convened on May 29 until June 9 in Helsinki, Finland. On the first day of the meeting, an Antactic public symposium, "Antarctica today, shared challenges for science and environmental protection in the final frontier" will be held, co-organised by the Finnish Foreign Ministry, Univeristy of Lapland, Wilson Center, and Kobe PCRC. In the academic session, Director Shibata will speak on the importance of science and scientific evidence in the ATCM's legal and policy making. Prof. Koivurova will chair the panel, while Prof. Bastmeijer and Mr. Bloom will join as other speakers. All of them are Kobe PCRC guests in recent months. Our panel will be around 14:00 (20:00 in JST) and will be live streamed. Please click to download the program for details.

May 10, 2023

Kobe PCRC-JSPS fellowship for AY2024

Kobe PCRC will host JSPS fellows for academic year 2024 (arrival in Japan between April 2024 and March 2025). The JSPS fellowship offers generous financial support for various level of scholars from Postdocs, Mid-career to Professor Level with different length of stay in Japan. This fellowship is great opportunity, especially for early career researchers wishing to stay at Kobe PCRC to conduct relatively long-term collaborative research. For details, please see the Invitation as well as the JSPS Application Guidelines. Please note the deadline of some recruitments, including the 1st recruitment of Postdoctoral Fellowship is June 15th.

April 18, 2023

Invitation to graduate studies in international law at Kobe University, with Japanese government scholarship: deadline end of May

PCRC welcomes students who would like to pursue graduate level studies (Ph.D. in Laws) specializing in international law, including Arctic and Antarctic legal and policy studies, under the supervision of Professor Akiho Shibata, Director of the PCRC. For the enrollment in 2024, it is strongly recommended to simultaneously apply for the Japanese government scholarship by the end of May this year. Please click the image for the details. The useful information regarding GSICS, PCRC and MEXT scholarship are also available in our YouTube video.