Bordermap Consulting is led by Martin Pratt, an internationally-respected expert in boundary-making, border management and territorial dispute resolution. Prior to establishing Bordermap, Martin served as Director of Research at Durham University’s renowned International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU).
Martin specialises in geographical and technical aspects of boundary-making, but his expertise combines geography, international law, history, geopolitics and cartography. He has worked with more than forty governments and international organisations involved in boundary negotiations and third-party dispute resolution before the International Court of Justice, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea and international arbitral tribunals. He has also advised numerous oil and gas companies, pipeline layers, shipping companies, law firms and publishers.
Over the last three decades Martin has trained more than 1,800 students from 140 countries in practical aspects of boundary-making and dispute resolution. He continues to lead IBRU’s professional training workshop programme, and Bordermap Consultancy offers a range of training services to governments, NGOs and commercial organisations.
Martin has served as an advisor to the African Union Border Programme and to the International Boundaries Task Force of the United Nations Geographic Information Working Group. In 2010 he was made an Honorary Professor in Geography at Durham University and received the Michael Barrett Award of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, awarded annually to the person whom in the opinion of the RICS has contributed most to the understanding of Land Transfer, Registration and Administration, Encroachments, Cadastre and Boundary issues.
Martin has written and spoken widely on international boundary issues. His publications include: the AUBP River Boundaries Guidebook (with Paul Bishop and Laurence Boisson de Chazournes); How to Deal with Maritime Boundary Uncertainty in Oil and Gas Exploration and Production Areas (with Derek Smith); A Terminal Crisis? Examining the Breakdown of the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Dispute Resolution Process; and a number of reports for the American Society of International Law’s definitive reference work International Maritime Boundaries. In 2008 Martin published a detailed map of maritime jurisdiction in the Arctic region which received international media coverage and has been reproduced in more than 200 academic and policy reports.