The EU in the Gulf region: a presentation by Luigi Di Maio

Luigi Di Maio, who has been the EU Special Representative for the Gulf region since June 1, 2023, served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy from September 2019 to October 2022. In 2022, he was President of the of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly. From June 2018 to September 2019 he held the positions of Deputy Prime Minister of Italy, Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Minister of Labour and Social Policies. From March 2013 to March 2018 he was Vice President of the Chamber of Deputies and a Member of the European Union Affairs Committee in the 17th Italian legislature. During his mandate as Foreign Minister he chaired, among others, the G20 Foreign Affairs Ministers meeting, the G20 Trade Ministers meeting, the G20 Ministerial Meeting on Afghanistan, the June 2021 plenary Ministerial Meeting of the International Anti-Daesh Coalition, as well as the first Mediterranean Ministerial Dialogue on the Food Security Crisis in June 2022. He was the chair of three annual editions (2019, 2020, 2021) of the MED Dialogue Conference aiming to develop a positive agenda for the wider Mediterranean region, at a time of pandemic and political and economic transition, based on multilateralism as a strategy for conflict resolution.

Franco Ferrari is the Clarence D. Ashley Professor of Law and the Director of the Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration, and Commercial Law at NYU School of Law. Before joining NYU, he was a full professor of law at Tilburg University (in the Netherlands), the University of Bologna, and the University of Verona (in Italy). After serving as a member of the Italian delegation to various sessions of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) from 1995 to 2000, he was Legal Officer at the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs, International Trade Law Branch, from 2000 to 2002, where he was responsible for numerous projects, including the preparation of the UNCITRAL Digest on applications of the UN Sales Convention. He has published more than 360 law review articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries in various languages and 50 books in the areas of international commercial law, conflict of laws, comparative law, and international commercial arbitration. Professor Ferrari, a recipient of the 2018 Certificate of Merit for High Technical Craftmanship and Utility to Practicing Lawyers and Scholars awarded by the American Society of International Law, is a member of the editorial boards of various peer-reviewed European law journals. He also acts as an international arbitrator both in international commercial arbitrations and investment arbitrations.

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