Justin Dargin

Justin Dargin is a Research Fellow with The Dubai Initiative and a Fulbright Scholar of the Middle East. He is a specialist in International Law and Energy Law, and a prolific author on energy affairs. He specializes in carbon trading, the global oil and gas market, the legal framework surrounding the Gulf energy sector and Middle Eastern geopolitics. Justin has spent long periods of time living and traveling in the Gulf and North Africa.

Justin undertook his graduate study at Georgetown University Law Center (honors) where his thesis researched the development of a potential carbon trading platform in the Gulf and its impact on foreign direct investment in the regional energy sector.

Previously, Justin worked at Owens Corning Global Headquarters in the international legal department, as an integral part of the compliance team for adherence to the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and in structuring relations with its Saudi Arabian and South African joint ventures.

Justin also worked in the legal department at the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), where he advised senior staff as to the implications of EU and American Law in multilateral relations. During his time at OPEC, Justin was an essential member of the ascension team to ensure Angola’s entry as the organization’s twelfth member was structured appropriately, as well as advising senior staff as to the implications of major WTO and UN initiatives. Justin was also a researcher at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, where he researched Middle Eastern Gas Issues, and pioneered the first major substantive work on transnational gas trade in the form of the Dolphin Project.

He has published over fifty book chapters and articles in such publications as the Middle East Economic Survey, the Oil and Gas Journal, the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies, and the Gulf Research Centre. Drawing heavily upon his recognized expertise in Middle Eastern energy and geopolitics, he is the author of “The Dolphin Project: The Development of a Gulf Gas Initiative” (OIES Press Jan. 2008), and the author of a forthcoming book, entitled “Desert Dreams: The Quest for Gulf Integration from the Arab Revolt to the Gulf Cooperation Council” (Feb. 2012).

Justin is on a variety of boards; he sits on the board of directors of the International Energy Foundation, on the review committee for Fulbright Scholars, is the Senior Advisor to the European Geopolitical Forum (EGF) on EU-Gulf Energy Relations and is a member of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations as a global energy expert. He is fluent in Spanish, Arabic and English.

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