Sir Michael Wood
UN International Law Commission and Twenty Essex
Round table on maritime security (afternoon panels session, day 1)
Sir Michael is a member of the UN International Law Commission. He was the principal Legal Adviser to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) between 1999 and 2006. During his 35 years as an FCO lawyer, Michael attended many international conferences, including the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea. He spent three years at the UK Mission to the UN in New York, dealing chiefly with Security Council matters.
Since leaving the FCO in 2006, Sir Michael has been a member of Twenty Essex Chambers, London. He has acted for various governments in cases before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, the International Criminal Court and inter-state arbitral tribunals. He has written extensively on public international law.