Experts

WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANISATION

Sergio Balibrea has joined the cabinet of the World Intellectual Property Organization Director General Francis Gurry. A Spanish lawyer and former official of the European Union, Balibrea has more than 17 years of experience in international trade and IP diplomacy. He was previously First Counsellor at the EU Delegation to the WTO and UN in Geneva, in charge of Intellectual property, Trade defence and Competition. He also served as EU's spokesperson in Geneva. EU Delegations are the diplomatic offices of the European Union and represent the trade interests of its 27 Member States around the world. Mr. Balibrea has held several posts including Head of "Trade and Economics" at the EU Delegation in Beijing, where he handled EU-China trade relations during a key period in China's rise (2002-06). Before that, Mr. Balibrea served in Brussels as EU Services negotiator on WTO matters and led on China’s accession to the WTO. He is a guest lecturer at various universities including Thunderbird School of Global Management, and is a member of the Spanish law bar. Mr Balibrea holds a LLM in International and EU law from Louvain in Belgium and a Law degree from Barcelona in Spain.

ECONOMIC RESEARCH DIVISION, WTO

Cosimo Beverelli has worked at the Economic Research Division of the WTO since April 2009. He is also lecturer in the Economics Department of the University of Geneva. Before joining the WTO, he worked at the Graduate Institute, Geneva, and at UNCTAD. He holds a PhD in International Economics from the Graduate Institute, Geneva, where he wrote a thesis on "The Consequences of Offshore Outsourcing". He has published two co-authored book articles, and two of his most recent research papers are forthcoming in the Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade and on International Economics and Economic Policy.
 

DIRECTOR, AGRICULTURE AND COMMODITIES DIVISION, WTO

Clemens Boonekamp is the Director of the World Trade Organization's Agriculture and Commodities Division.
A native of the Netherlands, he received bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in economics from Rhodes University, Simon Fraser University and Brown University, respectively.
He has been with the WTO since 1991 and has served with the Trade Policies Review Division and the External Relations Division. He was Director of the Trade Policies Review Division from 1998-2009, when he was appointed to his current position. Prior to the WTO, he was on the economics faculty of the University of British Colombia and was a senior economist with the International Monetary Fund.
He has been published in economics journals in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
 

SWISS STATE SECRETARIAT FOR ECONOMIC AFFAIRS

Philippe Borel holds a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Middle East Studies from McGill University (Montréal, Canada) in addition to a Diplôme d'études supérieures from the Graduate Institute of International Studies (HEI) in Geneva Switzerland. Subsequently, he joined the Trade in Services Division of the World Trade Organization where he served for four years as an Economic Affairs Officer and co-secretary to the negotiating body (Special Session) of the Council for Trade in Services. His duties also included extensive technical assistance to WTO Members. From 2006 to 2009 he has been a Policy Advisor at Ideas Centre in Geneva (http://www.ideascentre.ch/), providing trade policy advice to a number of countries currently negotiating their accession to the WTO, with a focus on the services negotiations of this process. Since 2010, he works at Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) as Scientific Collaborator in the International movement of goods department.

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Mark Halle was born in the United States but grew up in Switzerland. His career began in the field of international negotiations, serving in the diplomatic secretariat of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. In that capacity, he was involved in the negotiation of the Barcelona Convention on the Mediterranean Environment, one of the first regional environmental conventions ever adopted.
He then spent five years with UNEP, starting in the Policy Planning Unit and ending up working on the global State of the Environment report published ten years after UNEP’s establishment. From UNEP, he worked with WWF and IUCN in writing the World Conservation Strategy, a document which fundamentally changed the way in which conservation of nature was approached, namely by abandoning the earlier notion that conservation and development were necessarily in opposition to one another and embracing the notion that they are essential components of sustainable development.
Halle then moved to WWF International, serving for three years as conservation assistant to HRH The Prince Phillip (the president of WWF) and helping to establish and direct the WWF program in China.
He moved to IUCN in 1984 to establish the Conservation for Development Centre, IUCN’s first move to involvement with the developing countries. For seven years, he worked in, and directed, this Centre, establishing the foundation for what is now an extensive worldwide IUCN presence. Halle then spent a further three years setting up IUCN’s fundraising system, and a final four years establishing its Global Policy and Partnerships program.
Since his departure from IUCN, he has worked for the International Institute for Sustainable Development, both as its European Representative and as its Global Director for Trade and Investment. In this capacity he supervises a team of twenty-five professionals based in Europe and around the world.
Halle lectures, writes and publishes frequently on issues relating to sustainable development and to multilateral trade policy. He is founder and former Chairman of the Board of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development.

 

COUNSELLOR. WTO

Cédric Pene is currently Counsellor at the World Trade Organization. He was previously Policy Officer in the FAO/UNECE (United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) Timber section in Geneva since October 2009, where he is dealing mainly with cross sectoral issues of interest for the Forestry sector. He was before Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of France to the World Trade Organization (Geneva) from 2001 to 2008, where he was in charge of Agriculture, Environment, Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures and Regional Trade agreements, including the follow up of Doha Development Agenda negotiations and disputes in these areas. Previously, Cédric Pene worked for the French Ministry of Agriculture, where he participated in the negotiation and implementation of the European Common Agricultural Policy reform of 1999. He also worked for the French Ministry of Economy and Finance within the Agricultural unit of the Department for Trade. Cédric Pene holds Engineering degrees from Ecole Centrale de Paris and Ecole Nationale du Génie Rural des Eaux et des Forêts (Paris, France) as well as a MA in Micro-Economics..

ECONOMIST, UNCTAD

Sudip Ranjan Basu is an economist with International Trade Division of the UNCTAD since 2004. Dr. Basu has been a Visiting Lecturer at the Graduate Institute as well as a Visiting Research Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia and International Food Policy Research Institution, Washington, DC. Prior to UNCTAD, he worked at the International Labour Organisation, the World Bank, (Indian) National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, and the University of Geneva. He has written on trade policy, development, India-China, WTO, applied econometrics and economic forecasting models. Over the course of his 10 years at the UN, he has contributed to more than two dozen UN reports, published in various academic journals, and edited books. Currently, he is a member of the UN Project LINK research group and UNCTAD Non-Tariff Barriers technical team. He was former President of the Spring Meeting of Young Economists and a member of IHS Global Insight’s Global Outlook Committee. He is advising several national governments as well as regional and international agencies. He has a Ph.D. in international economics from the Graduate Institute with Lawrence R. Klein as one of his thesis advisers.

COUNSELLOR - MARKET ACCESS DIVISION, WTO

Roy Santana is counsellor at the Market Access Division of the WTO. He is an expert on issues relating to tariffs and non-tariff measures, the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), and the negotiations on Non-Agricultural Products (NAMA). He has provided assistance to panellists in disputes arising under the Dispute Settlement Understanding of the WTO. He has lectured in numerous occasions in Asia, Europe, the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean.
Prior to working in the WTO, from 2001 to 2004, he served as a Geneva representative for the Government of Costa Rica in diverse areas of the Doha Development Agenda, including on Agriculture, NAMA, and Trade & Environment.  During this time, in 2003, he was elected vice-chairman of the International Textiles and Clothing Bureau (ITCB) and served as an alternate member of the Textiles Monitoring Body of the WTO.
From 1998 to 2000 he worked as a trade negotiator for the Government of Costa Rica on issues relating to Market Access, Agriculture and Trade & Competition Policy in the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas (FTAA).  He also participated in several bilateral trade negotiations with other Central American countries, as well as with Canada, Chile, Dominican Republic, Mexico and Panama.

Mr. Santana has an LL.M. in Trade Regulation from New York University (NYU), as well as a lawyer's and a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Costa Rica.
 

TRAINING CONSULTANT

Jon Worth is a freelance EU training consultant and website designer based in Brussels and London. He has previously worked full time as a trainer at the National School of Government in London and now works for a variety of training clients in London, Brussels and Berlin. For the last 3 years he has run all the introductory courses in EU affairs at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office in London and has run introductory training courses in EU affairs for many UK government departments, and private and NGO sector clients.

Jon has a background in the public sector in both Brussels and London having worked in the European Parliament and as a civil servant in Whitehall. He follows EU business closely and is the author of one of the best known blogs about EU affairs – www.jonworth.eu

COUNSELLOR - INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DIVISION, WTO

Jayashree Watal is presently a Counsellor in the Intellectual Property Division of the World Trade Organization (since February 2001). Before this she was a visiting scholar with the Center for International Development at Harvard University. From October 1998 to August 2000, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for International Economics in Washington DC. She was also a visiting scholar at the George Washington University Law School from 1997 to 2000.
She has more than twenty-two years of experience in government in India, of which ten years of experience were in policy, diplomacy, research and administration on intellectual property rights, which includes having researched and published on issues related to intellectual property rights, including a book Intellectual Property Rights in the WTO and Developing Countries(Oxford University Press, India and Kluwer Law International, 2001). She has also consulted for the World Bank, UNCTAD and the UNDP in these areas.
Jayashree's experience extends to having negotiated trade policy, intellectual property and environment issues in GATT/WTO over 4 years and having contributed to policy making on these issues in the government of India during and after TRIPS negotiations for over 7 years. She also helped supervise the administration of the patent and trademarks offices in India for 2 years.
Jayashree made presentations to policy makers and graduate students in India and the US on WTO/ TRIPS issues periodically. She also participated in international conferences, workshops, seminars and consultations on matters relating to the WTO and IPRs, particularly from 1998 onwards.
Jayashree's educational background includes a DESS (post Master's degree) in International Trade Law (1992) at the University of Paris V, (Rene Descartes), Paris, France. She also received a diploma in International Economic Relations (1992) at the International Institute for Public Administration, (IIAP), Paris France. In 1975 she received and M.A. in Economics at the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in Education, University of Pune in Maharashtra, India. She received a B.A. in Economics in 1973 from Fergusson College, University of Pune, Maharashtra, India.