By Sarah Schechter, CELS Communications Fellow
Assistant Professor Elizabeth Mendenhall carved out a career where the law meets the ocean. “I would describe my research portfolio as focusing on the drivers and mechanisms of change in the Law of Sea Convention, which is basically a constitution for the oceans. It says who can do what and where in any ocean space,” said Mendenhall, a political scientist in the Department of Marine Affairs at URI.
This passion started early in her career and has continued to grow alongside her opportunities. “I studied philosophy and political science in my undergrad at Kansas State University, but the main thing I was really into was competitive debate,” said Mendenhall. “I always really liked foreign policy topics, so I started to get interested in international politics through political science and debate.” While completing her Ph.D. in International Relations at Johns Hopkins University, she learned about the job opportunity with the Department of Marine Affairs. “The position focused on international law of the sea, which is what I had wanted to do. I thought ‘This is perfect!’” she shared. By this time, she had confirmed her passion for political science and completed her dissertation while preparing to start her position at URI.
“My dissertation focuses on the ways that the Law of the Sea Convention hasn’t achieved its goals, and I identify connections between that dysfunction and places where the Law of the Sea Convention made assumptions about geography, ecology, and technology that ended up being very flawed,” said Mendenhall. The Law of the Sea Convention was written in the 1970s/1980s and was implemented starting in the 1990s. While it was revolutionary at the time, the Law does not cover newer issues in ocean governance, and it needs to be updated.
As ocean policy continues to adapt, Mendenhall has focused about two-thirds of her research on recent negotiations around ocean governance. “There’s a new treaty for governing areas beyond national jurisdiction, such as spaces out in the middle of the ocean, and it implements the Law of the Sea Convention,” she shares. “This is the first new big ocean treaty we’ve had since 1995.” As an observer of the negotiations, Mendenhall sits amongst non-governmental organizations and other academics who are able to take notes and interview the delegates between the negotiation sessions to learn about their perspectives and goals for their nations. “Through my research, I became friends with some of the delegates, and we realized that we had common goals and ideas. Before the last negotiation session I published a paper co-author with one of the delegates about adding liability provisions, which would basically make a stricter treaty,” said Mendenhall. These ideas were shared at a following session, which inspired some changes in the treaty.
She has found support from URI, especially in CELS, and has been able to travel to the negotiations and pursue her research, finding ways to contribute to international conversations while still working as an assistant professor and completing her duties for the university. “With this base of support provided by URI, I can be critical, and we need people to be critical, so I feel really lucky,” said Mendenhall. “I think it’s understood, accepted, encouraged, and embraced at URI and in the College of Environment and Life Sciences that we study a lot of what we study because we care about the world and we want to do better,” she explained.
Mendenhall also shares her experiences at the negotiations with her students through class discussions and even by using online platforms to talk with the class during breaks. She uses these opportunities to offer some insight into the mechanisms of international ocean governance. “I make it as real and interesting as I can, and I also try to bring it down to earth a bit because there’s something that’s really intimidating to see these individual humans speak on behalf of their country, so I share with students how human the negotiations often are,” she elaborated. She encourages her students to make connections and pursue their passions in ocean governance. “Our grad students are really great, and they push me further and I learn from them,” she reflected, “and that’s one of the reasons why CELS is such a good place to be doing this work because we attract really high-quality students that are also interested in these topics.”
Mendenhall is also opportunistic when it comes to learning experiences and has found success in just showing up and trying something new. “I have thought to myself, ‘how lucky I am to have these opportunities, and to be recognized as worthy of the opportunities’, and while I have this grand vision that I want to get to in my career, I’m also just taking whatever opportunity presents itself next,” she reflected. This was the case when she was granted a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award in the Spring of 2022 after attending a URI workshop about the opportunity. “I thought, ‘I don’t know anything about Fulbright, so I’m going to go,’” she recalled. The rest is history. She spent a semester in Iceland networking and studying Iceland’s role in ocean governance. Mendenhall connected with other experts in her field and plans to publish her findings soon.
While still early in her career, Mendenhall considers her future in ocean policy and how URI offers her access to the field. “My experience so far suggests that the kind of influence that I would want to have is a positive impact on the development of laws,” she shared. “I want stricter, better, more effective international law and I think I might be able to do that here; and I’m still getting a lot of joy from teaching,” she added. With the support and wealth of knowledge Mendenhall has found from her colleagues, she plans to continue to grow in the Marine Affairs and Political Science Departments and share her research and expertise with URI. “I still feel like I have a lot to learn about the history of ocean policy for two reasons: 1) how you interpret international law today depends a lot on how and why it was written; and 2) we don’t want to make the same mistakes we did in the past, so I try to understand what has worked well and what has failed,” she explained. While planning for the future of ocean governance, Mendenhall uses the past to guide her research and always keeps an eye out for new opportunities.