Edward L. Miles has served as chairman of the Ocean Policy Committee, National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council (1974-79); member of the Executive Board, Law of the Sea Institute, 1972-81 and 1985-89 and President 1989-93; Chairman of the Legal and Institutional Task Group on the Implications of Disposal of High-Level Radioactive Waste into the Seabed and Advisor to the Executive Committee, Seabed Working Group, Nuclear Energy Agency, OCED, 1981-1987; Chairman of the Advisory Committee on International Programs of the National Science Foundation, 1990-92; and member of the Advisory Committee for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences, National Science Foundation, 1992-1994.

He has also served as consultant to the United Nations, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of Unesco, Dept. of Fisheries of FAO, and the South Pacific Forum Fisheries Agency.  In April 1993 he served as the UN-designated expert on GESAMP, the Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Environmental Protection and in 1994 he was appointed Lead Author for Marine Policy in WG II-B (Oceans and Large Lakes) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change 1995, Re-assessment of the Global Climate Change Problem.  He is the author of many studies on international organizations, international science and technology policy, and marine policy and ocean management.

Within the University of Washington, he has served as Director of the School of Marine Affairs (1982-1993), Chairman of the University Committee on Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education (1991-1992), and a member of the University's Steering Committee on Global Change (since 1992), and chairman of the President's Task Force on Environmental Education, 1995-1996.