Trade Links: New Rules for a New World

Wednesday, April 27, 2022
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM (Eastern Daylight Time)

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About the Event

The World Trade Organization (WTO) faces an existential crisis because it has failed to keep pace with the needs of a changing world. So argues James Bacchus, a founding member and former chairman of the Appellate Body of the WTO. Professor Bacchus sets out his analysis in a new book, Trade Links: New Rules for a New World, and will share it in our webinar. He argues that the devastating global economic toll of the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically illustrated the WTO’s weaknesses and the need to update its rules to confront future pandemics and climate change and achieve sustainable development. With Jose Alvarez, U.S.-Asia Law Institute Faculty Director, as moderator. 

About the speaker

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. He has judged more WTO trade disputes than anyone else in the world and has been described by The American Lawyer magazine as “the John Marshall of the World Trade Organization.” Bacchus is a former member of the US Congress and a former international trade negotiator for the US. He is the author of several books: Trade Links: New Rules for a New World, Trade and Freedom, The Willing World: Shaping and Sharing a Sustainable Global Prosperity, and The Development Dimension: Special and Differential Treatment in Trade (with co-author Inu Manak).