Peter Van den Bossche is a former Member and Chair of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization (2009-2019), and is currently Director of Studies and Professor of International Economic Law at the World Trade Institute of the University of Bern, and President of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL). Van den Bossche is also an honorary professor at Maastricht University and a visiting professor at the Bocconi University, Milan (2023), the Université de Genève (since 2018), LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, Italy (since 2016), at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador (since 2016), and at the College of Europe, Bruges (since 2010). He is member of the Advisory Board of the World Trade Review, Journal of International Economic Law, the Journal of World Investment and Trade and the Revista Latinoamericana de Derecho Comercial International. Since 2013, he is also member of the Advisory Board of the WTO Chairs Programme (WCP). Van den Bossche is on the roster of arbitrators for disputes under the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA), the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), and the EU-Andean Community Trade Agreement, on the panel of arbitrators of the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration (SCIA) and the South China International Arbitration Center (Hong Kong) (SCIAHK), and on the EU list of candidates suitable for appointment as arbitrators and TSD experts.
Van den Bossche holds an LL.M. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (1986) and a PhD in law from the European University Institute, Florence (1990). Van den Bossche graduated magna cum laude from the Faculty of Law of the University of Antwerp (1982). Van den Bossche worked at the Court of Justice of the European Communities, Luxembourg, as référendaire of Advocate-General W. Van Gerven (1990-92) after which he joined the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University. From 1997 to 2001, Van den Bossche was Counsellor to the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization, Geneva. In 2001, he served as Acting Director of the Appellate Body Secretariat after which he returned to Maastricht University as Professor of International Economic Law. From 2005 to 2009, Van den Bossche was Head of the Department of International and European Law of Maastricht University. In 2007, he founded the Institute for Globalisation and International Regulation (IGIR) at Maastricht University and served as its first Academic Director until 2009. He obtained substantial research grants from inter alia the European Commission, the Asian Development Bank, the Government of the Netherlands, and the Southern African Customs Union.
Van den Bossche is the author (with Werner Zdouc) of The Law and Policy of the World Trade Organization, 5th edition (Cambridge University Press, 2022, and (with Denise Prévost) of Essentials of WTO Law, 2nd edition (Cambridge University Press, 2021). The Chinese edition of The Law and Policy of the World Trade Organization was published in 2020 by Law Press China.
