Evan Bloom

Evan T. Bloom is a visiting senior fellow focused on transatlantic security, the Arctic, and other issues related to polar, international environmental, and ocean affairs.

Bloom is a lawyer and former senior American diplomat. During his 30-year career at the US Department of State, he served as acting deputy assistant secretary of state for oceans and fisheries. He was also director of the Office of Ocean and Polar Affairs and a member of the federal Senior Executive Service. He currently serves as senior advisor to UiT The Arctic University of Norway’s Centre for the Ocean and the Arctic, marine protected area policy advisor to the Antarctic and Southern Ocean Coalition, polar governance chair of the Ted Stevens Center for Arctic Security Studies, and adjunct professor at the University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies. He was a senior fellow at the Wilson Center’s Polar Institute.

Bloom helped establish the Arctic Council, negotiating its initial rules and documents in 1996. He supervised US representation in the council from 2006 to 2020. He co-chaired its task force that produced the eight-party Agreement on Enhancing International Arctic Science Cooperation in 2017. He also co-chaired the council’s ecosystem-based management experts group. He led the US delegation to high-seas treaty negotiations (biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction) at the UN from 2016 to 2020, and chaired the executive committee of the federal Extended Continental Shelf Task Force and supervised State Department representation at the International Maritime Organization and the International Seabed Authority. He also led US delegations to numerous law-of-the-sea bilateral and multilateral dialogues and served as the State Department’s representative to the White House Ocean Policy Committee.