Profile

Dr. Kristoffer Svendsen is the Assistant Dean for the Energy Law Program at George Washington University Law School, and an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Stavanger and Kristiania University College. He brings over a decade of experience teaching, writing, managing programs, and mentoring students on domestic and international energy law issues in various contexts.

Dean Svendsen has a Bachelor of Laws and Master of Laws from Bond University, Australia, specializing in public and energy law.

After Australia, he went on to undertake another Master of Laws in Russian oil and gas law at MGIMO-University. Dean Svendsen worked for a Russian investment bank and a Moscow law firm for several years. Leaving Moscow, he worked for the EU-Russia Centre in Brussels on energy and rule-of-law issues for EU-Russia relations. Dean Svendsen left Belgium to undertake his PhD in law at the Arctic University of Norway, which focused on liability and compensation rules for cross-border oil spills from offshore installations in the Barents Sea.

Before arriving at GW, Dean Svendsen worked as the Assistant Director of the Tulane Center for Energy Law, an associate member of the Aberdeen University Centre for Energy Law, Of Counsel of a Moscow law firm, a visiting scholar at Duke University Law School, and volunteered for 2014 Sochi Olympics. He also works periodically as an International Commerical Arbitrator.

Dean Svendsen has guest lectured globally and published extensively about liability and compensation for offshore oil pollution damage, contractual risk allocation in oil and gas-related contracts, offshore wind, deep sea mining, international oil spill disputes, pure economic loss, and Russian energy and environmental law. His most recent books are: Kristoffer Svendsen, Liability and Compensation for Offshore Oil Pollution Damage in the Arctic, (Brill, 2023); and Kristoffer Svendsen, Endre Stavang and Greg Gordon (eds), Knock-for-Knock Indemnities and the Law Contractual Limitation and Delictual Liability (Routledge, 2023). Dean Svendsen's upcoming book is titled Offshore Wind Law Handbook.

Dean Svendsen is admitted to practice law in New York, New South Wales, and Norway.