Founder Story

One simple idea

I still remember very clearly the day it all came together. I was sitting on a remote black sand beach in Bali, looking out across the Ocean. The blue seemed endless. In the distance, the water disappeared into the tropical haze until the Ocean and sky became almost indistinguishable. Sitting there, I found myself wondering: why am I doing what I do?

At that time, I had been spending years locked in office rooms, crunched over my laptop and my books, studying law, completing degrees and exams, and building a career in litigation at international law firms. Somewhere along that path, I had lost sight of why I had chosen to practice the law in the first place. On that beach, far away from the noise of the world, I remembered.

I was sixteen when I decided I wanted to become a lawyer. I was outraged by human rights violations happening all over the world, and I saw law as a vehicle for change.

Living in Indonesia for several years brought me extraordinarily close to the Ocean, but I also became a first-hand witness of the threats it faces, caused by human activities: the plastic pollution, the biodiversity loss, the coral bleaching, the collapse in fish populations, the impacts on coastal communities’ livelihoods. I saw plastic washing onto beaches. I learned about the disappearance of sharks through overfishing. I began to understand how something that seemed so vast and indestructible could, in reality, be profoundly vulnerable.

All of a sudden, it became clear. The Ocean needed protection from us, not the other way around. I knew the law. I knew how to litigate. And I knew exactly what I had to do: use those tools to stand for the Ocean and alongside the communities whose lives depend on it.

Soon after, I stepped away from my corporate legal career in Germany to focus on a doctorate in Ocean protection law. Thinking like a litigator, I was looking for something very specific: a legal obligation that could be enforced to hold States accountable when they failed to protect the Ocean.

I found it in the gap between political ambition and legal duty. States had repeatedly committed to designating marine protected areas, yet consistently fallen short. Meanwhile, Article 192 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) imposed a legally binding obligation on States to protect and preserve the marine environment. That became the central question of my doctorate: could this obligation be interpreted in a way that made the designation of marine protected areas legally enforceable?

I was lucky to write much of the doctorate while living in Manly, Australia, during the pandemic. Every morning on my way to the library, I took a detour to see the Ocean and clear my mind. And on the way home, my snorkel was always in my library bag, ready for a swim in the Cabbage Tree Bay Aquatic Reserve.

My PhD thesis eventually turned into a book: The Designation of Marine Protected Areas: A Legally Binding Obligation. More importantly, it became the legal foundation for what I came to call Ocean Litigation, the first department of Ocean Vision Legal.

This was only the beginning.

An organisation in its own right

Several years later, Ocean Vision Legal is no longer one lawyer with an idea and a laptop. We are a team of seven and growing, working across borders, disciplines and legal systems, united by one purpose: using the law to protect the Ocean.

Over those years, our understanding of what that means has expanded.

Through Ocean Litigation, we take direct legal action to hold governments, companies and other actors accountable for their marine protection obligations. We believe that many of the legal obligations needed to protect the Ocean already exist. These duties are too often ignored, under-enforced or treated as aspirational. We work to close this accountability gap and turn legal obligations into real protection for the Ocean, marine species and the communities who depend on them. We challenge some of the most destructive pressures on the Ocean, from bottom trawling in protected areas to deep-seabed mining.

Through Ocean Rights, we work to advance a more fundamental evolution in the law: one that recognises the Ocean, marine ecosystems and species not merely as resources for human use, but as having intrinsic value and, ultimately, rights of their own.

Through Ocean Guardianship, we work alongside Indigenous Peoples and coastal communities, listening and learning first, and asking how our legal expertise can support the protection of the places, ecosystems and relationships they have safeguarded for generations. We begin from the position that communities already hold the knowledge, authority and systems needed to protect the Ocean.

Through Ocean Literacy, we take legal knowledge beyond courtrooms and legal journals. We believe legal knowledge should be a tool everyone can use, not a barrier that keeps people out. Through free legal assessments, toolkits and policy briefs, we put practical legal know-how directly into the hands of activists, lawyers, communicators, and policymakers working to protect the Ocean.

None of this was built by one person. Scientists have taught us. Communities have trusted us. NGOs have invited us into their work. Funders have believed in ambitious ideas, sometimes long before we could demonstrate where they would lead. Partners around the world have shared their knowledge, networks and experience. And an extraordinary team has shaped Ocean Vision Legal through expertise and perspectives far beyond my own.

This month marks an important step in that evolution: Ocean Vision Legal is now incorporated in Germany. On paper, it is only a change in legal structure. For me, it represents something much bigger. While OVL began as a sole proprietorship and was in some way inseparable from me as the founder, it now stands on its own two feet. It has its own team, expertise, partnerships, identity and body of work. It has grown beyond the person who founded it: Ocean Vision Legal has become an organisation in its own right.

A new chapter: announcing our new brand and website

In the same way, it was time for our visual identity to better reflect the organisation we have become.

Until now, Ocean Vision Legal existed under a visual identity that was designed by and for a team of one person. But over the years, we had outgrown it. Our work has become far more international, more specialised and more ambitious. We needed a new brand platform that reflected that complexity, while staying true to the mission and values we hold close since the beginning.

We were lucky to work with the best possible partners at Justified Studio, whose talented team quickly understood who we are and what we do, but most of all grasped the challenges of being a small, growing legal organisation that is charting new territories for what a law firm can be. We needed new narratives that helped convey the complexity of our work without losing people’s attention. We needed a more modern look and feel, adding a playful twist to the traditional Ocean blue color palette without losing our professionalism. The team at Justified held space for these tensions and helped us find a way.

From a new logo, brand manifesto and website, to clarified tone of voice and strategic pillars, our new brand aims to be bold, fierce and timeless, while reflecting our core values: cultural humility, professionalism, collaborativeness and compassion. Our cetacean icon is a universal symbol referring to the marine species we aim to be a voice for, while resembling a section mark, the typographical symbol used in legal writing to abbreviate and reference specific sections of a statute, code or regulation. The “Building the Case” graphic device symbolises the collation of information used in Ocean law, but also the collaboration across the team and with our partners.

Our new website, in particular, becomes a much stronger platform: one that reflects the depth of our legal work, explains the Ocean issues we address, makes legal knowledge more accessible, showcases our cases and projects, celebrates the expertise of our team, and gives greater visibility to the partnerships that make our work possible. It allows us to communicate with greater clarity, build a stronger online presence, and create a space where our impact, our knowledge and our mission can be seen and understood more fully. Above all, it gives greater visibility to the mission itself.

While much has changed since that day on the beach in Bali, the idea at the heart of Ocean Vision Legal has remained remarkably simple: law can be used as a powerful tool to protect the Ocean and those who depend on it. That is the idea we are carrying into this next chapter.

New brand, same mission: Protecting the Unprotected.

With gratitude,

Anna