Rakhyun E. Kim, PhD (ANU Fenner School), is Associate Professor of Earth System Governance at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. He directs a five-year research project on 'problem shifting' between international environmental treaties, funded by a European Research Council Starting Grant.

Kim is an interdisciplinary social scientist at the intersection of global environmental governance and international environmental law. He works on theories of Earth system-oriented, post-global, planetary law and governance. Analytically, his research interests include exploring the complexity and dynamics of institutional architectures, with a focus on international regimes, agreements, and organizations as key building blocks. He has authored more than 90 publications in journals and books, including the edited volume Architectures of Earth System Governance: Institutional Complexity and Structural Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Kim is a Senior Research Fellow at the Earth System Governance Project, where he co-leads the Task Force on Earth System Law, the Working Group on Earth-Space Governance, and a research cluster of the Task Force on Ocean Governance. Additinoally, he co-leads a working group of the EU COST Action on futures-oriented governance of outer space, as well as the Special Interest Group on Network Analysis for Sustainability at the Copernicus Institute. He sits on the editorial boards of six leading journals, including Earth System Governance and Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law. Previously, Kim served as a Lead Author of the United Nations Environment Programme's Global Environment Outlook (2019) and co-authored the 10-year Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project (2018). He is currently contributing to the United Nation's World Ocean Assessment expected in 2025.

At Utrecht University, Kim teaches BSc and MSc courses and supervises research students. He has supervised five PhD projects to completion, with six more in progress. He was nominated twice by a student association for the university-wide Outstanding Teacher Award in 2019 and 2022.

Kim is the winner of the 2013 Oran R. Young Prize.