Sebastian Oberthür is the Director of the Research Centre for Environment, Economy and Energy, and Professor for Environment and Sustainable Development at the Brussels School of Governance. He is also Professor of Environmental Policy and Law at the Centre for Climate Change, Energy and Environmental Law at the University of Eastern Finland. From 2005 to 2015, Sebastian Oberthür served as Academic Director of the Institute for European Studies (now part of the Brussels School of Governance). From 2006 to 2013, he was a member of the Compliance Committee of the Kyoto Protocol to the UNFCCC.
Before joining the Brussels School of Governance in 2005, Sebastian Oberthür served as a part-time assistant professor for international relations at the Otto-Friedrich-University Bamberg. Previously, he was a senior research fellow with Ecologic, the Institute for International and European Environmental Policy in Berlin, with which he remains a Senior Policy Advisor. Sebastian Oberthür studied political science in Marburg and Berlin. He received a PhD from the Free University Berlin for his work on "The Contribution of International Regimes to Solving Environmental Problems" (summa cum laude).
Trained as a political scientist with a strong background in international law, he focuses on issues of international and European climate and environmental governance. Sebastian Oberthür has published widely on related subjects and is invited regularly as an expert to participate in and speak at relevant conferences and workshops. He serves on the editorial boards and review panels of various journals and as a reviewer of several national science foundations. He is also co-editor of the book series on "The European Union in International Affairs" with Palgrave Macmillan.
