Caroline Foster (law professor)

Caroline E. Foster is a New Zealand law professor at the University of Auckland, specialising in international law and the law of the sea, compliance and dispute settlement.

Academic career
Foster completed a BA and LLB (Hons) at the University of Canterbury, and an LLM and PhD at the University of Cambridge. Foster then joined the faculty of the University of Auckland, rising to full professor in 2022. She is the Director of the New Zealand Centre for Environmental Law.

Foster researches the functioning of international tribunals and courts, and their roles. She is also interested in compliance with international law, and dispute settlement. Foster has written two monographs. The first, published by Cambridge University Press in 2011, Science and the Precautionary Principle in International Courts and Tribunals: Expert Evidence, Burden of Proof and Finality, was cited in the International Court of Justice by Judges Bruno Simma and Awn Al-Khasawneh on a case concerning pulp mills, and a dispute regarding international whaling. Global Regulatory Standards in Environmental and Health Disputes: Regulatory Coherence, Due Regard, and Due Diligence, published by Oxford University Press in 2021, was nominated for the European Society of International Law monograph prize in 2022.

In collaboration with Professor Andrew Lang, chair of international law and global governance at the London School of Economics, Foster was awarded a Marsden grant in 2013, On the forge: the role of the international judge and arbitrator in the 21st century, which funded the research for her 2021 monograph.