Nilufer Oral is a member of the law faculty at Istanbul Bilgi University where she teaches courses in international law and international environmental law.  She is a member of the United Nations International Law Commission and is Co-chair of the Study Group on Sea-level rise in relation to international law.

Dr Oral served as a legal advisor to the Turkish Foreign Ministry on matters related to the law of the sea and was a climate change negotiator for the Ministry between 2009 until 2016.  She was a member of the legal advisory group the Turkish Foreign Ministry for the UN Palmer Panel of Inquiry  on the 31 May 2010 Flotilla Incident. Dr. Oral also appeared before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea in the Request for an advisory opinion by the Sub-Regional Fisheries Commission (SRFC).

She has served on the Council of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) (2012-2016) and is currently a member of the Steering Committee of the IUCN World Commission on Environmental Law. She was also Chair of the IUCN Academy of Environmental Law. Dr. Oral is a Distinguished Fellow of the Law of the Sea Institute at Berkeley Law, the University of California Law Berkeley.  

In addition, she has been a visiting scholar and lecturer, including at the University of California, Berkeley, University of Virginia, a Distinguished Speaker at the Centre for International Law, a lecturer at the United Nations Regional Courses in International Law in Africa and Asia National University of Singapore, the Rhodes Academy on the Law of the Sea and the University of Malta.

Dr Oral is the series editor for the International Straits of the World publications (Brill). Series Editor, International Straits of the World (Brill), and a member of the editorial board member for the European Society of International Law Series (Oxford), and an associate editor, Research Perspectives in the Law of the Sea (Brill). She has numerous publications on the law of the sea and international law, and has spoken at numerous international conferences. She is also a member of the American Society of International Law and the European Society of International Law.