ACWL Staff
Mr. Frieder Roessler
Mr. Roessler has been the Executive Director of the ACWL since it began its operations in 2001. In this capacity, he manages the day-to-day operations of the ACWL and represents the ACWL externally. Mr Roessler also serves ex officio on the ACWL's Management Board.
Mr. Roessler was educated in Germany, Switzerland and the United States. After completing his legal training in Germany, he worked for the World Bank and then for the GATT and the World Trade Organization. In 1989, he was appointed Director of Legal Affairs, a post which he held until 1995. Mr. Roessler's main task at the GATT and the WTO was to advise dispute settlement panels and to prepare drafts of their reports or supervise their preparation by his staff. He was also closely involved in the legal aspects of the Uruguay Round negotiations and participated in the legal drafting process at the end of the Round.
After leaving the WTO, Mr. Roessler joined the faculty of law of Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He has also been an adjunct professor at the Jean Moulin University of Lyon and at Paris and taught at the universities of St. Gallen in Switzerland and of Minnesota in the United States. Between 1995 and 1998 he gave courses and seminars at Georgetown University on international economic law, the external relations and trade policies of the EC, WTO dispute settlement procedures (with Prof. John Jackson), and trade and the environment (with Prof. Edith Brown-Weiss).
Mr. Roessler's mother tongue is German. He speaks English and French fluently and is able to read Spanish.
Publications
Mr. Roessler has published extensively in the field of international trade law. His publications include:
- "The Scope of WTO Law Enforced through WTO Dispute Settlement Procedures" in The WTO: Governance, Dispute Settlement & Developing Countries, edited by Merit E. Janow, Victoria Donaldson and Alan Yanovich, Juris Publishing, 2008.
- "Beyond the Ostensible – A Tribute to Professor Robert Hudec’s Insights on the Determination of the Likeness of Products of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade" – Journal of World Trade – Law – Economics – Public Policy, Volume 37, No 4, August 2003.
- "The Institutional Balance between the Judicial and the Political Organs of the WTO" – New Directions in International Economic Law, Essays in Honour of John H. Jackson, Kluwer Law International, edited by Marco Bronckers and Reinhard Quick, 2000.
- "The Legal Structure, Limits and Functions of the World Trade Order", a collection of essays, Cameron May, 2000.
- "Diverging Domestic Policies and Multilateral Trade Integration" in Fair Trade and Harmonization: Prerequisites for Free Trade Volume 2: Legal Analysis, Editors: Jagdish N. Bhagwati and Robert E. Hudec, MIT Press, 1996.
- "The Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization" in The Uruguay Round Results, A European Lawyers’ Perspective, Jacques H.J. Bourgeois, Frédérique Berrod & Eric Gippini Fournier (eds), 1995.
- "The Relationship between the World Trade Order and the International Monetary System"- The New GATT Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations, Legal and Economic Problems - Studies in Transnational Economic Law, Volume 5, edited by Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann Meinhard Hilf, 1990.
A full biography is available on request from the ACWL.
Emails for Mr. Roessler should be addressed to Ms Carol Lau using the standard email format: name.surname@acwl.ch.