On Tuesday at the Fifth Annual Update on WTO Dispute Settlement, organised by the Institute’s Centre for Trade and Economic Integration, the Institute was fortunate to welcome back Alumni Frieder Roessler and Jasper M. Wauters, who contributed to a roundtable of experts at the event. Both Mr Roessler and Mr Wauters obtained law degrees from the Institute, are specialists in international trade law, and have numerous years of experience in WTO dispute settlement.

Frider Roessler is currently the Executive Director of the Advisory Centre on WTO Law. He was previously Director of Legal Affairs at the World Trade Organization and its predecessor the Geneva Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. He also worked at the World Bank. Mr Roessler is the author of numerous publications on international trade law and was on the faculty of law at Georgetown University, was Adjunct Professor at Jean Moulin University in Lyon and Paris, and taught at the universities of St Gallen in Switzerland and Minnesota in the United States.

Jasper M. Wauters is Counsel at the prestigious global law firm King & Spalding’s International Trade Practice Group in Geneva. Mr Wauters has over ten years of professional experience in international dispute settlement, both in private practice at King & Spalding and as a Legal Affairs Officer at the WTO Secretariat. Prior to working for the WTO, Mr Wauters was a lawyer at a major Brussels-based law firm, and was a Legal Officer at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

The Update on WTO Settlement is held each year on the occasion of the release of the WTO appellate body’s annual report and this year included presentations by high ranking WTO officials such as Deputy-Director Alejandro Jara as well as experienced practitioners and academics who specialise in WTO law. The roundtable was moderated by Joost Pauwelyn, Professor of International Law at the Institute and Co-Director of the Centre for Trade and Economic Integration.

[script partage]