In conversation with James Bacchus
21 September, 4-5 pm,
Jubilee Building, room 115.
Can the international trade system be reformed? Can our trade rules support the need to respond to climate change, or public health emergencies like Covid-19, and better reflect our digital world? And if so - how?
In his new book, Trade Links: New Rules for a New World, James Bacchus draws on long experience with trade, including as founding judge and twice Chairman of the WTO Appellate Body. He confronts the thorny challenge of reforming trade rules head-on, providing a number of practical and thought-provoking suggestions. Along the way he also affirms the importance, and tremendous benefits, of maintaining open and rules-based trade, and the WTO as the institution that supports them.
The UK Trade Policy Observatory, Centre for Inclusive Trade Policy and ßÏßÏÊÓƵ Law School invite you to this in-person seminar, where James will discuss his new book and the challenges and reform prospects for the multilateral trading system, and respond to audience questions.
Speaker biography
James Bacchus is the Distinguished University Professor of Global Affairs and Director of the Center for Global Economic and Environmental Opportunity at the University of Central Florida. He was a founding judge and was twice the Chairman – the chief judge – of the highest court of world trade, the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. He is a former Member of the Congress of the United States, from Florida, and also a former international trade negotiator for the United States.
He is a Global Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation in Canada and an Adjunct Scholar of the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. He is the Pao Yue – Kong Chair Professor at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. He served on the High-Level Advisory Panel to the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, chairs the global Commission on Trade and Investment Policy of the International Chamber of Commerce, and chaired the global sustainability council of the World Economic Forum. For more than fourteen years, he chaired the global practice of the largest law firm in the United States and one of the largest in the world.
Professor Bacchus is the author of the books Trade and Freedom, published by Cameron May in London in 2004, and The Willing World: Shaping and Sharing a Sustainable Global Prosperity, published by Cambridge University Press in 2018. The Financial Times named The Willing World one of the “Best Books of 2018,” and Trade Links one of the "Best Summer Books of 2022." He is a frequent writer in leading publications and a frequent speaker on prominent platforms worldwide on numerous topics relating to international law and international political economy.