Polar law describes the normative frameworks that govern the relationships between humans, States, Peoples, institutions, land and resources in the Arctic and the Antarctic. These two regions are superficially similar in terms of natural environmental conditions but the overarching frameworks that apply are fundamentally different. The Routledge Handbook of Polar Law explores the legal orders in the Arctic and Antarctic in a comparative perspective, identifying similarities as well as differences. It points to a distinct discipline of "Polar law" as the body of rules governing actors, spaces and institutions at the Poles. Four main features define the collection: the Arctic-Antarctic interface; the interaction between global, regional and domestic legal regimes; the rights of Indigenous Peoples; and the increasing importance of private law. While these broad themes have been addressed to varying extents elsewhere, the editors believe that this Handbook brings them together to create a comprehensive (if never exhaustive) account of what constitutes Polar law today. Leading scholars in public international and private law as well as experts in related fields come together to offer unique insights into polar law as a burgeoning discipline.

Yoshifumi Tanaka is Professor of International Law, with specific focus on the law of the sea, at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. He is a member of the Centre for Private Governance (CEPRI) and the Research Group SHOC (Shipping and Ocean Law). He holds a DES and a PhD from the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva (currently the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) and a LLM from Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo. He is the single author of five books: Predictability and Flexibility in the Law of Maritime Delimitation (Hart Publishing 2006; 2nd edn 2019), A Dual Approach to Ocean Governance: The Cases of Zonal and Integrated Management in International Law of the Sea (Ashgate 2008), The International Law of the Sea (1st edition, Cambridge University Press 2012; 3rd edn 2019; 4th edn forthcoming), The Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes (Cambridge University Press 2018) and The South China Sea Arbitration: Toward an International Legal Order in the Oceans (Hart Publishing, 2019). He has published widely in the fields of the law of the sea, international environmental law and peaceful settlement of international disputes.

Rachael Lorna Johnstone is professor of law at the University of Akureyri, Iceland and professor of law at Ilisimatusarfik (University of Greenland). Rachael Johnstone grew up on the north coast of Scotland before studying law at the University of Glasgow, European Academy of Legal Theory in Brussels, and the University of Toronto. Her legal education is of the western model, a mix of common law and civil law traditions. It is to her discredit that despite studying for eight years in three countries with colonial histories, she graduated from each of them with very little knowledge of colonialism or Indigenous law. She took up a teaching post at the University of Akureyri, Iceland in 2003 where she has since been based. In 2011, she enrolled in the university's masters programme in Polar law and began to specialise increasingly in that field. Rachael has also taught and conducted research in various capacities at Ilisimatusarfik (the University of Greenland) since 2011 and she has learned a great deal from Inuit scholars, not least her Greenlandic students. In the past decade, she has turned her attention increasingly to the rights of Indigenous Peoples amid broader questions of decolonisation of international law. This entails conscious 'unlearning' of many of the assumptions of and about international law that constrained her earlier research. She does not presume to speak on behalf of Indigenous Peoples or present an Indigenous viewpoint.

Vibe Ulfbeck is a professor of private law with a special focus on maritime law at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. She is the director of CEPRI, Centre for Private Governance, Head of the Research Group SHOC (Shipping and Ocean Law) and founder of the Sustainability Hub at the Law Faculty. She has written extensively on contract law, tort law and maritime law issues and takes a special interest in the role of private actors in carrying out public interest tasks. She is the author of a number of articles concerning the exploitation of minerals in the Arctic and the co-editor of the books Responsibilities and Liabilities for Commercial Activity in the Arctic - The Example of Greenland (Routledge 2016), Law and Responsible Supply Chain Management - Contract and Tort, Interplay and Overlap (Routledge 2019) and Maritime Organisation, Management and Liability - A Legal Analysis of New Challenges in the Maritime Industry (Hart 2021).