Lotta Viikari serves as Professor of Public International Law at the University of Lapland. She also works as Director of the Institute of Air and Space Law. Lotta Viikari has published especially in the areas of space law, international environmental law, and law of the sea. Most of her research projects have related to international environmental law in one way or another. Recently, she has been examining especially natural resource management of the global commons, including deep-sea mining and celestial body resource activities. Her current fields of interest in the environmental sector also include legal implications of climate change, e.g., climate refugees and the status of low-lying island states. A completely different but equally interesting theme for research is legitimacy of whaling.