The World Trade Organisation: Risks, opportunities and options for the future

*** Please note the change of venue ***

This event is hosted by the Edinburgh Centre for International and Global Law

THE WTO: RISKS, OPPORTUNITIES AND OPTIONS FOR THE FUTURE

A roundtable to discuss the WTO and its relevance for the UK as it seeks to navigate its future outside Europe. An experienced panel of experts, with deep firsthand knowledge of the WTO, will guide us through the nuts and bolts of how businesses and organisations can influence and interact with the WTO, as well as discuss the serious challenges the organisation is currently facing and potential ways out of it.

The event is open to all. Those wishing to participate are invited to register, for planning purposes - Link Below

 

Martin Bell
Martin Bell joined the Scotch Whisky Association in 2004, specialising on external trade policy, with a particular geographic focus on market access and trade negotiations in the Asia-Pacific region.  He leads the SWA’s engagement with the World Trade Organisation and has extensive experience of its standing mechanisms, up to and including dispute settlement.  Finally, he has chaired the External Trade Committee of spiritsEUROPE since 2010.

Trade has been central to Martin’s academic and professional career as a whole.  After starting working life as a solicitor in private practice, and a subsequent spell with the European Commission’s DG Environment in Brussels, he joined the Scottish Office as was in 1997.  He worked there for seven years in a range of fields, latterly on a three year secondment to the Policy Unit of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry.

Mr Bell holds an LLB Honours Degree in Scots Law from the University of Edinburgh and an LLM in European and International Trade Law from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.  He has also been a tutor in European Law at the University of Edinburgh for three years.

Ignacio Garcia Bercero
Ignacio Garcia Bercero joined the European Commission in 1997. Amongst other files, he was responsible for leading negotiations on trade and competition. In September of 2001 he became head of the unit responsible for WTO dispute settlement, responsible for the management of numerous disputes with third countries and for the negotiations to improve the WTO dispute settlement understanding. In June 2005 he became Director responsible for bilateral trade relations with South Asia, South East Asia, Mediterranean and Middle East countries, Russia and the Eastern Neighbourhood.

As Director, he has been responsible for a large number of geographical and thematic files, including Trade and Sustainable Development and since January 2018 Trade policy input to Brexit discussions. He was Chief negotiator for the EU-Korea FTA and for the negotiations of a free trade agreement with India. Since January 2012 he has been responsible for transatlantic trade relations and chief negotiator for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

As a young civil servant he participated in the Uruguay Round negotiations, which resulted in the establishment of the World Trade Organization. He was also lead negotiator in GATT and in OECD for trade and the environment. After participating in the United Nations Conference On Environment and Development, he joined the EU Delegation to the United Nations in New York, where he was responsible for a broad range of economic, development, environment and human rights files.

M. Garcia Bercero has a law degree from Universidad Complutense Madrid (Honours) and a Master of Law from University College London (Distinction). He has also published numerous articles on trade related matters in different academic publications. During his fellowship (at St Antony's College) he intends to using focusing his research on how to reform the World Trade Organisation, including both its rule making and dispute settlement functions.

Prof. dr. Peter van den Bossche
Peter van den Bossche is Director of Studies of the World Trade Institute and Professor of International Economic Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bern, Switzerland. Since 2018, he has served as President of the Society of International Economic Law.

Prof. van den Bossche served as Member of the Appellate Body of the WTO from 2009-2019, and was its Chair in 2015. He previously worked at the European Court of Justice, before joining the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University. From 1997 to 2001, Van den Bossche was Counsellor to the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization, Geneva. In 2001, he served as Acting Director of the Appellate Body Secretariat, after which he returned to Maastricht University as Professor of International Economic Law. From 2005 to 2009, he was Head of the Department of International and European Law of Maastricht University.

He is an honorary professor at Maastricht University, the Netherlands, and a visiting professor at the LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador, and at the College of Europe in Bruges. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Journal of International Economic Law, the Journal of World Investment and Trade, the Revista Latinoamericana de Derecho Comercial Internacional and the WTO Chairs Programme of the World Trade Organization and author of publications on WTO law.

Peter Van den Bossche holds an LL.M. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and a Ph.D. in law from the European University Institute, Florence. He graduated magna cum laude from the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp.

 

This event is free and open to all but due to limited available space registration is required (link below).

 

Event Link

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