Event Calendar

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Is this the end of the WTO’s Appellate Body?

Start Date: 12/10/2019 12:30 PM EST
End Date: 12/10/2019 2:00 PM EST

Venue Name: Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

Location:
1200 Seventeenth Street NW
Washington, DC  United States  20036-3006

Organization Name: WIIT

Contact:
WIIT Staff
Email: info@wiit.org
Phone: 202-869-3779

The Association of Women in International Trade (WIIT) invites you to a Trade Talk on the current crisis facing the WTO Appellate Body (AB). On December 11, 2019 the WTO’s Appellate Body will officially cease to function. The terms of two members will expire and the AB will be left with one serving member, i.e. without the minimum number required to hear an appeal. Since 2017 the United States has blocked the appointment of members on grounds of substantive and procedural concerns with the functioning of the body. Several WTO countries have made proposals for Appellate Body reform though none of those proposals appear acceptable to the United States. What does this mean for the fate of the WTO’s crown jewel? And importantly what does this mean for the WTO as a multilateral trade institution?

Featuring:

  • Carrie Goodge O’Brien, Minister-Counsellor (Economic and Trade Policy) at the Embassy of Canada
  • Jennifer Hillman, Senior Fellow for trade and international political economy at the Council on Foreign Relations
  • Kathleen Claussen, Associate Professor, University of Miami School of Law and Senior Fellow, Institute of International Economic Law, Georgetown University Law Center
  • Simon Lester, Associate Director of Cato's Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies
  • Stephan Becker, Partner, International Trade, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP

Moderated by:
  • Moushami Joshi, Attorney, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP 



Carrie Goodge O’Brien is the Minister-Counsellor (Economic and Trade Policy) at the Embassy of Canada in Washington D.C. In this capacity, Ms. Goodge O’Brien is the head of the section leading the Government of Canada’s engagement with U.S. interlocutors on a broad range of trade and economic issues, including trade agreements, trade remedies, commercial regulatory policy, and border trade facilitation.  
 
Prior to joining the Embassy, Ms. Goodge O’Brien served as the Senior Counsellor to the Executive Director for Canada on the Board of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and was formerly a government procurement and goods trade negotiator for the Government of Canada. Since joining Global Affairs Canada in 2002, Ms. Goodge O’Brien has also served as a spokesperson and Trade Commissioner for arts and cultural industries. 
 
Ms. Goodge O’Brien holds has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and International Trade from the University of Waterloo, and a Masters of Arts in Globalization and International Development from the University of Ottawa. 

Jennifer Hillman is a senior fellow for trade and international political economy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), specializing in U.S. trade policy, the law and politics of the World Trade Organization (WTO), international organizations, and Brexit.   

Hillman was most recently a professor of practice at the Georgetown University Law Center, teaching the lead courses in international business and international trade, along with a practicum on international trade and investment law that gave students the opportunity to resolve real-world problems for developing country governments and a wide variety of NGOs. She recently published Getting to Brexit: Legal Aspects of the Process of the UK’s Withdrawal from the EU (IIEL 2018) and Legal Aspects of Brexit: Implications of the United Kingdom’s Decision to Withdraw from the European Union (IIEL 2017). She also co-authored the leading casebook on trade, International Trade Law, 3rd ed., Wolters Kluwer (2016). Additional writings have covered climate change, carbon taxes, the trade war with China, and reforms to the WTO.

Hillman has had a distinguished career in public service. In 2012, she completed her term as one of seven members serving on the WTO's highest court, its Appellate Body. Hillman also has in-depth experience adjudicating antidumping, countervailing duty, patent and safeguards cases along with conducting numerous studies of the economics of trade policy and trade agreements as a result of her service as a Commissioner at the United States International Trade Commission. Through her work as the General Counsel at the Office of the United States Trade Representative, Hillman was involved in all litigation matters in which the United States was a party or third party in disputes before panels of the NAFTA or the WTO and in addressing the intersection between trade policy, trade law, and foreign policy. She negotiated bilateral agreements with forty-five countries while serving as USTR’s Ambassador and Chief Textiles Negotiator and was the legislative director and counsel to U.S. Senator Terry Sanford of North Carolina before joining USTR.

Hillman was a partner in the law firm of Cassidy Levy Kent, a senior transatlantic fellow for the German Marshall Fund of the United States, president of the Trade Policy Forum, and a member of the selection panel for the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation.  She serves on the board of visitors at the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. She is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and Duke University.

Kathleen Claussen is Associate Professor at the University of Miami School of Law and Senior Fellow at the Institute of InternationalEconomic Law at Georgetown University Law Center.  Prior to joining the Miami Law faculty in 2017, she was Associate General Counsel at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in the Executive Office of the President. There, she represented the United States in trade dispute proceedings and served as a legal advisor for the United States in international trade negotiations.  She serves in various leadership capacities for international law organizations, including as a member of the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law (ASIL) and as co-chair of the ASIL International Economic Law Interest Group.  Earlier in her career, Professor Claussen was Legal Counsel at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague where she advised on disputes between countries, and on investment and commercial arbitrations involving countries and international organizations.  She is a graduate of the Yale Law School, Queen’s University Belfast where she was a Mitchell Scholar, and Indiana University where she was a Wells Scholar.



Simon Lester is the associate director of Cato's Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies. His research focuses on WTO disputes, regional trade agreements, disguised protectionism and the history of international trade law.

Before joining the Cato Institute, he worked for the trade law practice of a Washington, D.C., law firm, and also as a legal affairs officer at the Appellate Body Secretariat of the World Trade Organization. In 2001 he founded the international trade law website WorldTradeLaw.net. He has written a number of law journal articles, which have appeared in such publications as the Stanford Journal of International Law, the George Washington International Law Review and the Journal of World Trade. In addition, he has taught courses on international trade law at American University's Washington College of Law and the University of Michigan Law School.

He has a JD from Harvard Law School. 

Steve Becker leads Pillsbury’s International Trade practice. His work encompasses a broad range of legal subjects in the areas of international trade regulation and international law.

Steve has represented clients in numerous international dispute settlement proceedings conducted under the rules of regional trade agreements, the World Trade Organization and the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes. Steve advises clients on export control restrictions and embargoes; customs laws and duty-reduction programs; foreign investments in U.S. companies; and trade remedy proceedings such as antidumping and countervailing duty investigations.

He works with companies from a range of industries, including semiconductors, aerospace, electronics, software, energy and agriculture. Steve represents companies, associations and foreign governments in administrative and criminal enforcement actions, international dispute settlement proceedings and domestic litigation involving international law.
He is recognized by Chambers USA and Chambers Global in International Trade: Trade Remedies and Trade Policy, and by Chambers USA in International Trade: Export Controls & Economic Sanctions. 

Moushami Joshi is an Attorney at Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP. She is a dual qualified lawyer with significant experience in trade matters before Indian authorities. 
 
At Pillsbury she represents and advises governments in countervailing duty proceedings and WTO disputes. She advises and represents the Government of Mexico and Government of New Brunswick in Sugar and Softwood Lumber trade remedies matters. In a previous role she represented the Government of India in a WTO dispute initiated by the United States challenging sanitary measures maintained by India on imports of poultry products. She has advised several Government of India departments on WTO issues including the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Planning Commission and the Centre for WTO Studies.

She is the author of “Shifting Sands: The Evolution and Future Course of U.S. Antidumping Law and Practice against China and Vietnam”, in (Non-Market Economies in The Global Trading System: The Special Case of China) Springer Singapore 2018. 
 
She has featured as a panelist at “WTO@20”, a conference organized by the WTO Appellate Body and National Law University, Delhi, February 2017, India. 
 
Moushami is the Vice President of Programming at the Association of Women in International Trade (WIIT) and the Co-Chair of the WTO Section at WIIT. 

Location: 
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP
1200 Seventeenth Street NW | Washington, DC 20036-3006
 
Nearest Metros: Farragut North and Dupont Circle (Red Line)

Pricing:
Members: Free
Non-members: $25

Note: This is a brown bag event
 

Online Registration

Registration is Closed
Closed: 12/10/2019 10:30 AM

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