Desai Shan

Desai’s research mainly focuses on the compensation system of seafarers’ injuries and deaths in China, especially the injured seafarers’ understanding of the regulations and their experience of claiming process.

Before joining SIRC, Desai was an assistant lawyer with Chinese Legal Professional Qualification working in a top maritime law firm in mainland China, Wang Jing & Co., Xiamen Office. Through the legal practice, Desai accumulated relevant experience dealing with damage claims arising from seafarers’ injuries and death at sea, arrests of ships, and cargo damage claims in China. Desai graduated from Dalian Maritime University with a Bachelor degree in Maritime Law in July 2010. The undergraduate study in Dalian Maritime University equipped Desai with a systematic knowledge in Chinese legal system and maritime law knowledge. In 2009, Desai was selected as a visiting student to join one year exchange study program in the law school of University of Nottingham. This exchange study experience raised Desai’s courage to dedicate to human rights promotion, especially in the seafarers’ rights protection.

Desai is currently a SIRC/Nippon Foundation Research Postgraduate Fellow at the School of Social Sciences of the Cardiff University. She is awarded the Diploma in Social Science Research Methods in the summer of 2012. Now she is at the starting phase of her PhD research, working with the literature review and methodology.

Desai’s career goal is to be a scholar promoting human rights protection in the shipping industry, dedicating to optimize the current Chinese seafarers’ casualty legal compensation system.