I am professor of philosophy at the University of Oslo, associate editor of the Journal of Applied Philosophy, and member of the steering group of the Standing Committee of the Humanities & Social Sciences, Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR SC-HASS).

My main research interests are in the intersection between political and environmental philosophy, which I have been exploring as principal investigator of the five-year ERC project Dynamic Territory: A Normative Framework for Territory in the Post-Holocene. In my recent book, From Sovereignty to Guardianship: Governing Antarctica, Governing the World (open access), I take the model of Antarctic governance as an inspiration for the governance of other places like ecoregions and the oceans. At the same time, I point to its limitations and suggest how it could move further, beyond state-centrism and anthropocentrism. In The Right of Necessity: Moral Cosmopolitanism and Global Poverty, I argued that individuals whose basic right to subsistence is unfulfilled are morally permitted to act in ways that would otherwise go against the law. Rather than giving a carte blanche for illegal acts, however, what the book proposes is that the role of states globally should thus be to ensure, together, that everyone’s basic right to subsistence is met. I am also the co-editor of Colonialism and Antarctica: Attitudes, Logics, and Practices (open access), and Theories of Justice.

Beyond this, I have an ongoing interest in natural law theory, the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, and philosophical traditions beyond the Western canon, especially Buddhist and Indigenous thought.