The Berkeley Journal of International Law will present Alejandro Jara, one of the four deputy directors-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), as keynote speaker at its 2007 Riesenfeld Symposium on March 2. The WTO & International Trade Law After Doha: Where Do We Go From Here? will bring lawyers, diplomats, and scholars from around the world to Boalt, where they will examine the future of international trade law following the last round of negotiations in Doha, Qatar, aimed at boosting global growth and alleviating poverty in developing countries.
The Doha Development Round of WTO negotiations, which began in 2001, aim to lower trade barriers around the world and permit free trade between countries of diverse prosperity. Although the negotiations achieved compromise early on in such areas as intellectual property, talks stalled last summer over issues surrounding liberalization of agriculture, and negotiations have been indefinitely postponed.
Jara, a Chilean lawyer who earned his LL.M. from Boalt in 1976 with the support of a Fullbright fellowship, has a distinguished career in international economic relations, and was appointed to his current WTO post in 2005. He played a central role in the 2006 Doha negotiations, and will speak to the global economy and role of international economic law in his symposium keynote address. Andrew Guzman, professor and director of Boalt’s International Legal Studies Program and an expert in international law and trade, will join a panel discussion on the political and legal responses to the stalemate in negotiations.
The Riesenfeld Symposium series was established in 2000 to honor the memory of Professor Stefan Albrecht Riesenfeld, a refugee from Nazi Germany in 1934 who devoted his life and career to the study and practice of international law. He joined the Boalt faculty in 1952, where he remained until his retirement in 1976, and then taught through continuous annual re-appointments until his death in 1999.