Rakhyun E. Kim is Associate Professor of Earth System Governance at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University. He leads a five-year European Research Council Starting Grant project on 'problem shifting' between international environmental treaty regimes.

Trained as an interdisciplinary scholar (PhD, ANU Fenner School), Kim works at the intersection of global environmental governance and international environmental law. His research advances theories of Earth system law and governance and examines how international regimes, agreements, and organizations interact within complex institutional architectures. He has (co)authored more than 100 publications, including the edited volume Architectures of Earth System Governance: Institutional Complexity and Structural Transformation (Cambridge University Press, 2020).

Kim holds several leadership roles in the field. Within the Earth System Governance Project, he co-leads the Task Force on Earth System Law and a research cluster of the Task Force on Ocean Governance. At the Copernicus Institute, he co-leads the Special Interest Group on Network Analysis for Sustainability. He also serves on the editorial boards of leading journals, including Global Environmental Politics, Earth System Governance, and Review of European, Comparative & International Environmental Law. He was Lead Author of the United Nations Environment Programme's Global Environment Outlook (2019), co-author of the 10-year Science and Implementation Plan of the Earth System Governance Project (2018), and is currently contributing to the United Nations World Ocean Assessment expected in 2025.

At Utrecht University, Kim teaches across BSc and MSc programmes 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 (2019, 2022).

He received the 2013 Oran R. Young Prize.