Steering Committee

“I believe that environmental issues will dominate all aspects of multilateral discussions for the rest of the decade at least. To date, however, the conversations have tended to evolve separate sets of people. Often the environmental people are not talking to the trade people – even in their own company or government. The forum on Trade, Environmental Sustainability and the SDGs (TESS) is a bold new attempt to widen the conversation and thus stimulate cross-fertilization of ideas, knowledge, and perspective. This is why we are so pleased to host the Forum. I hope you’ll join this critical discussion via TESS!”

Joost Pauwelyn is Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland and Co-Director of the Institute’s Centre for Trade and Economic Integration (CTEI). He is also the Murase Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center (since 2014).  Previously he was Professor of Law at Duke University (2002-2007). He has also taught at Neuchâtel, Columbia, NYU, Stanford and Harvard law schools and worked as legal adviser for the WTO Secretariat (1996-2002).  From 2007 to 2014, he was Senior Advisor with the law firm of King & Spalding.

Joost specializes in international economic law, in particular trade law and investment law, and its relationship to public international law. He also frequently advises governments and industry in WTO dispute settlement and investment arbitration and is a leading force behind the global www.tradelab.org network of legal clinics on international economic law.

From 2015 to 2020, Joost was the Co-Editor in Chief of the Journal of International Economic Law. In late 2020, Professor Pauwelyn was appointed to the WTO’s multi-party interim appeal arrangement (MPIA, nominated by the EU).

Joost received degrees from the Universities of Namur and Leuven, Belgium as well as Oxford University and holds a doctorate from the University of Neuchâtel. He was appointed on the roster of WTO panelists and as arbitrator under Free Trade Agreements and the Energy Charter Treaty.

Joost is the author of one of the leading case books on International Trade Law (Aspen, 2016, 3nd ed., with A. Guzman and J. Hillman) and, most recently, co-editor of “Rethinking Participation in Global Governance: Challenges in Financial and Health Institutions” (OUP, 2021) and “Building Legal Capacity For a More Inclusive Globalization” (2019). He has also authored or co-edited, amongst other works, “Assessing the World Trade Organization – Fit for Purpose?” (CUP, 2017), The Use of Economics in International Trade and Investment Disputes (CUP, 2017), The Foundations of International Investment Law (OUP, 2014), Informal International Lawmaking (OUP, 2012),  and The Transformation of World Trade (Michigan Law Review, 2005).

“TESS comes at a critical moment for the trade and sustainable development agenda. With less than 10 years left to achieve the SDGs, Tess provides a welcome platform for the inclusive dialogue required to advance.”

Vanessa Erogbogbo is Chief, Sustainable and Inclusive Value Chains section at the International Trade Centre and a member of ITC’s Management Action Group. She has over 20 years of experience working in both international development and the private sector.

Vanessa oversees ITC’s work on sustainable value chains, as well as trade and gender, as part of a wider Trade for Sustainable Development programme which focuses on supporting SMEs for a sustainable future. She is also the lead for ITC’s SheTrades initiative, which works to connect millions women to international markets.

Vanessa is a member of the advisory board of the Geneva Trade Platform at the Graduate Institute and is vice-chairperson of the EQUALS Global Partnership steering committee. She previously held positions at the International Finance Corporation, Standard Chartered Bank, and as an entrepreneur.

She holds an MBA from the London Business School, an MSc Information Technology and B.Eng Hons in Civil Engineering from Loughborough University, UK.

“TESS initiative is a promising step towards reigniting informed debates on unsustainable trading practices and locating solutions within a post-pandemic world. Obviously the discourse has to be inclusive of Southern perspectives and embedded in a refashioned multilateralism.”

Debapriya (Deb) Bhattacharya, a macroeconomist and public policy analyst, is a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Dhaka, where he was its first Executive Director. He is also the founding Chair of the Southern Voice international network of think tanks – a network of more than 50 think tanks from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Earlier he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS). 

He was a former Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to WTO and UN Offices in Geneva and Vienna, President of UNCTAD Governing Board, Special Advisor on LDCs to the Secretary-General of UNCTAD, Coordinator of LDC Group of countries in the UN System in Geneva.  

Dr. Bhattacharya has been a member of a number of high-level national and international consultative groups including, among others, the Monitoring Advisory Group of the Global Partnership of Effective Development Cooperation (GPEDC), managed by UNDP and OECD, and the United Nations’ Committee for Development Policy (CDP). He also chairs the LDC IV Monitor – an alliance of development organisations including OECD Development Centre and the Commonwealth Secretariat.  

Dr. Bhattacharya received his Masters and PhD in Economics from the Plekhanov Institute of National Economy, Moscow. He later conducted post-doctoral research at Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford and was a Senior Fulbright Fellow at the Center for Global Development (CGD), Washington DC. He has published widely on issues of development policy, trade and the SDGs.

His Excellency Matthew Wilson, is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Barbados to the United Nations, WTO and Other International Organizations in Geneva.

Prior to this appointment, Mr. Wilson had been working at the International Trade Centre since 2013, first as Chief of Staff and Chief Adviser to the Executive Director and Deputy Executive Director until 2021, and then as Chief of Special Projects until 2022.  He worked at the World Trade Organization from 2010 to 2013, first as the Deputy Aid for Trade Coordinator for the first year, and then as Senior Adviser/Counsellor in the office of the Director-General.

Mr. Wilson worked at the Permanent Mission of Barbados to the United Nations Office at Geneva from 2002 to 2009.  He also served at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade of Barbados from 1998 to 2002.  He has more than 20 years of experience in trade and development.

Mr. Wilson has a Master of Business Administration from the London School of Economics (2022), and a master’s degree in development studies from the University of Bath in the United Kingdom (2002).  He also has a postgraduate degree in international relations from the University of the West Indies, Trinidad and Tobago (1997-1998), and a Bachelor of Science in sociology and psychology from the same University (1994-1997).

“France is proud to support the Forum TESS to encourage an inclusive and ambitious green agenda in the WTO. In line with our national objectives to foster sustainable development policies and the EU efforts towards a more sustainable trade policy, France looks forward to further collaboration with the Forum TESS.”

Etienne OUDOT de DAINVILLE was appointed as Permanent Representative of France to the World Trade Organization on September 2021.

He previously worked as Minister Counsellor, head of the economic and finance department of the French Embassy in Berlin, starting in September 2017. He worked on the improvement of the bilateral economic German-French relationships, before and throughout the Covid crisis. He contributed inter alia to the 2019 Aachen Treaty on French-German cooperation and integration, several French-German and European industrial policy initiatives (battery, hydrogen, artificial intelligence) and post-Covid recovery plan in the context of the European Green Deal to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. He had regular contacts with the French business community in Germany, including support to the French Tech communities in Berlin and Munich, and German investors to France.

Etienne OUDOT de DAINVILLE was head of the Financial department of the French Permanent Representation to the European Union from 2014 to 2017. With his team, he worked on all ECOFIN Council related issues (Economic and Monetary Union, tax policy, financial markets regulations), covering as well company law, competition and state aid, EU budgets. He was involved inter alia in the Invesment Plan for Europe (“Juncker Plan”), the 2015 Greek debt crisis, the implementation of the Capital markets union and Banking union initiatives and legislative efforts to tackle tax evasion and money laundering.

From September 2012 to November 2014, he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Trade Policy and Investment within the French Treasury, within the Ministry of Finance and Economy, managing a team of 31 persons in charge of trade policy issues (bilateral and plurilateral trade deals, WTO negotiations, market access, intellectual property issues in relation to trade), international and bilateral investment rules, economic sanctions, financial crime (moneylaundering and terrorism financing). He was the French trade minister’s representative at the WTO Bali Ministerial and helped launching EU FTA negotiations with Japan, ASEAN countries, US (TTIP) or concluding others (CETA).

He was previously Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Markets and Corporate Finance (2009-2012). In this position, he was actively involved in European and international efforts to better regulate securities markets and accounting following the 2008 financial crisis (G20, Financial Stability Board, IFRS Foundation) and in the way those new rules were being translated into French law.

From May 2007 to July 2009, Etienne OUDOT de DAINVILLE was technical adviser for international economic affairs to the French Prime Minister M. François Fillon. In his position, he was in charge of coordinating the French government works on trade issues, public development assistance, G8 affairs, international climate negotiations.

He previously worked as deputy head of staff of the French Trade Minister Mrs. Christine Lagarde (2006-early 2007) and head of unit for “agricultural trade negotiations, trade and development issues” (in 2005). Between 2002 and 2005, he served as deputy economic counsellor at the French Embassy to the United Sates in Washington DC. He joined the French Ministry of Economy and Finance, Department of Foreign Trade, in 1998, where he successively worked as an expert on French-German economic relations, EU-enlargment issues, international trade finance negotiations (OECD, WTO, EU, G8).

He graduated from the French national school of administration (ENA) in 1998 and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris.

“For years the WTO has flirted with ‘trade and’ agendas, whether it is trade and environment, gender, health, or development.  Addressing these intersections should not only be near the top of the WTO’s to-do list; it is the to-do list that would safeguard any future multilateral trading system.”

Bernice Lee is the Research Director, Futures and Hoffmann Distinguished Fellow for Sustainability at Chatham House. She was the Founding Director of the Hoffman Centre for Sustainable Resource Economy.’ She is also the Chair of the Chatham House Sustainability Accelerator Advisory Board.

An expert on the environment, the politics of climate change, innovation for sustainability, international trade and China, she is a member of the UK Global Resource Initiative Task Force, the UK Climate Change Committee’s International Advisory Group and the Energy Foundation China Board.