Professor Marko Pavliha studied law in Ljubljana (Slovenia), Split (Croatia) and at McGill Faculty of Law in Montreal (Canada) where he obtained doctorate under the supervision of legendary Professor William Tetley, one of the world leading experts in maritime law. He also passed the Slovenian Bar Exam and practiced law for over ten years in various companies, including a Canadian law firm and Slovenian shipping and reinsurance corporations. He has been Full Professor of Commercial, Transport and Insurance Law at the University of Ljubljana since 2004 and he taught law in Belgium (KU Leuven Faculty of Law), Luxemburg (European Commission) and Australia (University of Queensland, TC Beirne School of Law).

Prof. Pavliha has been a Visiting Fellow at the IMO International Maritime Law institute in Malta (IMLI) since 1998/99 where he is also active as an external examiner, member of the Board of Governors and member of the Academic Committee. In 2003 he was elected Secretary General of the Comité Maritime International (CMI), until he became a member of the Slovenian Government as Minister of Transport (2004) and later as Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Slovenia (2004-2007).

He was chosen thirteen times by the Ius Software Poll as one of the Ten Most Influential Slovenian Lawyers and won inter alia the 2001 Lawyer of the Year Award, the 2011 Award for Outstanding Voluntary Work granted by the Slovenian Federation of Lawyers’ Associations and the 2016 Prize for the Best Slovenian essay awarded by the KUD Sodobnost International and Sodobnost, the oldest Slovenian literary journal. He participated in drafting most of the Slovenian modern transport and insurance legislation.

Prof. Pavliha is past President of the Maritime Law Association of Slovenia, past President of the Slovenian Association of Parliamentarians, past member of the Judiciary Council of the Republic of Slovenia and he is still a member of the Strategic Council for Foreign Affairs, to mention a few. He is one of the founding members of the Slovenian civic movement Global Ethic Slovenia (Weltethos), the author and co-author of 32 books and hundreds of articles, essays and scientific papers on transport law, insurance law, maritime law, law of the sea, environmental law, ethics, philosophy, politics, etc. He was also an honorary ambassador of the Green and Blue Book on Integrated EU Maritime Policy. His initiative lead to the establishment of the Euro-Mediterranean University (EMUNI) in 2008.