Dr 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 in Geneva, Switzerland.
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.” Professor Bacchus is a former Member of the Congress of the United States, from Florida, and a former international trade negotiator for the United States. He served on the High-Level Advisory Panel to the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, providing advice and counsel during the negotiation of the Paris climate agreement, and is a member of the leadership council of the United States chapter of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.
He has chaired the global Commission on Trade and Investment Policy of the International Chamber of Commerce and the global council on sustainability governance of the World Economic Forum. He is the Pao Yue-Kong Chair Professor at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China. He is a member of the Roster of Panel Chairs for international dispute settlement under the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership and is a Chairperson on the list of arbitrators appointed by Canada and the European Union under their Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. Professor Bacchus is a Global Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, an Adjunct Scholar of the Cato Institute, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. For more than fourteen years, he chaired the global practice of the largest law firm in the United States and one of the largest in the world, Greenberg Traurig.
He is the author of the books Trade and Freedom, published by Cameron May in London in 2004; The Willing World: Shaping and Sharing a Sustainable Global Prosperity, published by Cambridge University Press in 2018 and named by the Financial Times as one of the “Best Books of the Year;” The Development Dimension: Special and Differential Treatment in Trade, with co-author Inu Manak, published by Routledge Press in 2021; and Trade Links: New Rules for a New World, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press in 2022. He is a leading advocate and activist worldwide for international cooperation, international trade, the international rule of law, and global sustainable development. As founder and director of the UCF Center for Global Economic and Environmental Opportunity – GEEO – he works locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally with a growing collaborative network of experts, activists, and other volunteers to foster links to sustainable development at every level and to explore new forms of governance at every level that further the creation of economic and environmental opportunity.
