International Advisory Board
Secretary, United Nations Commission International Trade Law Jernej Sekolec, Dr. jur., LLM, national of Slovenia, since February 2001 Secretary of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) and Director of the International Trade Law Division of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs. Prior to becoming Secretary of UNCITRAL, he was a member of the UNCITRAL Secretariat since 1982 and in that capacity he was involved in various projects entrusted to UNCITRAL intergovernmental working groups such as the preparation of legislative and non-legislative texts in the areas of arbitration, mediation, transport law, construction contracts, electronic commerce, international banking and payments, cross-border insolvency issues, countertrade transactions and international sales contracts. He carried out numerous missions that had the purpose of assisting national legislative organs in enacting laws based on texts prepared by UNCITRAL and non-governmental entities such as arbitral institutions when they drafted or modernized their institutional rules. Prior to joining the UNCITRAL Secretariat in 1982, he was Law Professor at the University of Maribor, Slovenia. He was also an arbitrator at the agricultural products exchange in Novi Sad (then Yugoslavia) and part time Judge, member of the appellate panel of the Court of Appeal Maribor (Commercial Chamber). He is a member of the Curatorium of the Xiamen (China) Academy of International Law. He has published books and articles in Slovenian on commercial law, including contract law, commercial arbitration, international payments, negotiable instruments, transport law and products liability. Subsequent to joining UNCITRAL he published various articles in English about the work of UNCITRAL.
Legal Counsel, World Intellectual Property Organizations
Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP James Carter joined the Firm in 1970 and became a partner in 1977. He is a member of the Litigation, Antitrust, and Project Finance Groups and is Coordinator of the international arbitration practice. He previously headed the Intellectual Property Group. Professor , Australian National University Hilary Charlesworth is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, Professor in RegNet and Director of the Centre for International Governance and Justice, ANU. She also holds an appointment as Professor of International Law and Human Rights in the ANU College of Law. Her research interests are in international law and human rights law. Antonio Mendes is a partner at Pinheiro Neto Advogados in São Paulo, Brazil. He is a member of the Executive Group and Coordinator of the Corporate Area with specialization in banking and financial transactions, corporate law, companies law, finance and investments and M & A. He received his LL.B. from the Franca School of Law and also received an M.C.L. from Duke University, USA. He is a member of the Brazilian Bar, Board of Cultura Inglesa, and the Board of Visitors of Duke Law School. Hilary Charlesworth is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, Professor in RegNet and Director of the Centre for International Governance and Justice, ANU. She also holds an appointment as Professor of International Law and Human Rights in the ANU College of Law. Her research interests are in international law and human rights law.
Hans Corell
Gian Luca Burci
Jernej Sekolec
Edward Kwakwa
James Carter
Antonio Mendes
Hilary Charlesworth
Sean Hagan is General Counsel at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Prior to beginning work at the IMF, Mr. Hagan was in private practice, first in the New York office of Whitman and Ransom and subsequently in Tokyo at Masuda & Ejiri. Mr. Hagan received his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and also holds a M.S. in International Economic Policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Hans Corell served as Under-Secretary-General for Legal Affairs and the Legal Counsel of the United Nations from 1994 to 2004. In this capacity, he was head of the Office of Legal Affairs in the UN Secretariat. Before joining the UN, he was ambassador and Under-Secretary for Legal and Consular Affairs in the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was the Secretary-General’s representative at the 1998 UN Conference that adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Mr. Corell was a member of Sweden’s delegation to the UN General Assembly from 1985 to 1993 and has had several assignments related to the Council of Europe, OECD, and the CSCE (now OSCE). From 1962 to 1972, he served in the judiciary and was appointed judge of appeal in 1980. In 1972, Mr. Corell joined the Ministry of Justice where he was engaged in legislative work in many fields and where he became Director of the Division for Administrative and Constitutional Law in 1979 and the Chief Legal Officer in 1981. Since his retirement from public service in 2004, Mr. Corell is engaged in many different activities in the legal field, inter alia as legal adviser, lecturer, and member of different boards. Among other he is involved in the work of the International Bar Association and the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University in the US. He is chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law. Webpage: http://www.havc.se .
Mr. Burci is the Legal Counsel of the World Health Organization (WHO). His main function is to provide legal advice and support in connection with sessions of the Health Assembly, Executive Board, Regional Committees and governing bodies of WHO programmes. He also advises units of WHO, other international organizations and Member States on legal and political issues arising in connection with relations of the Organization to its Member States and other intergovernmental organizations, and to the respective Host States of its Headquarters, regional and country offices and centres. Prior to joining the Organization, Mr. Burci served as a Legal Officer at the Office of Legal Affairs, United Nations Secretariat, both in Vienna and New York from 1989 to 1998.
Edward Kwakwa is Legal Counsel at the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, Switzerland. Kwakwa holds an LL.B degree from the University of Ghana, an LL.M. from Queen’s University in Canada, and an LL.M. and a J.S.D. from Yale University in the U.S.A.
Before joining WIPO, Kwakwa practiced corporate and international trade law and investment with the law firm of O’Melveny and Myers in Washington, D.C., worked as International Legal Adviser at the Commission on Global Governance in Geneva, as Senior Legal Adviser at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, and as Legal Affairs Officer at the World Trade Organization in Geneva. His publications include two books and numerous articles on international law. He is currently serving as a Vice-President of the African Foundation for International Law, Member of the Governing Council of Africa Legal Aid, Member of the International Law Association’s Committee on the Accountability of International Organizations and its Study Group on the Responsibility of International Organizations, and Chair of the Editorial Advisory Board of the African Journal of International and Comparative Law. He served from 2001 to 2004 on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law. He also serves on the Editorial Boards of several international law Journals and has been an Adjunct/Visiting Professor of Law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the University of Denver College of Law, the International Law Institute in Uganda, and the University of Pretoria, South Africa, where he has recently been appointed Extraordinary Professor in Law.
Mr. Carter is a widely recognized authority on international arbitration, with 35 years of experience as arbitrator or counsel in more than 100 cases, typically involving joint ventures or international trade or investment disputes. He is a leading exponent as well as a practitioner of international law and dispute resolution. Featured in The Lawdragon 500 Leading Judges in America (2006), Mr. Carter is singled out as being "on the short list of must-have international arbitrators."
Long active in the American Arbitration Association (AAA), of which he is immediate past Chairman of the Board, Mr. Carter chaired or served as sole arbitrator in several recent cases, involving: 1) a dispute between U.S. and European aerospace companies regarding a weapons system workshare agreement; (2) a dispute between a law firm and its client over adequacy of legal services; (3)a distribution agreement for electronic products in Ecuador; and (4) a dispute involving equipment supplied to a power project in Australia.
Mr. Carter serves as counsel in arbitration proceedings. Among other cases, he represents a Canadian gold mining company in an UNCITRAL Rules arbitration with the Kyrgyz Republic in Stockholm. In addition, he serves as counsel in U.S. litigation involving commercial, corporate, antitrust, securities and intellectual property matters.
In addition, he serves as counsel in U.S. litigation involving commercial, corporate, antitrust, securities, and intellectual property matters.
She has held visiting appointments at Washington & Lee School of Law, as Manley O. Hudson Visiting Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School, New York University Global Law School as Wayne Morse Professor at the University of Oregon, and at Université de Paris (Paris I). She was also the 2005 Sir Ninian Stephen Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Military Law at the Law Faculty, University of Melbourne. She was winner (with Christine Chinkin) of the Goler T. Butcher Medal awarded by the American Society of International Law in 2006 for "Outstanding contributions to the development of international human rights law."
She was the inaugural President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law (1997-2001). She was Co-Editor of the Australian Yearbook of International Law from 1996 to 2006 and a member of the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law since 1999. She has worked with various non-governmental human rights organisations on ways to implement international human rights standards and was chair of the ACT Government's inquiry into an ACT bill of rights, which culminated in the adoption of the ACT Human Rights Act 2004. She is Patron of the ACT Women's Legal Service and a patron of the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture.
She has held visiting appointments at Washington & Lee School of Law, as Manley O. Hudson Visiting Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School, New York University Global Law School as Wayne Morse Professor at the University of Oregon, and at Université de Paris (Paris I). She was also the 2005 Sir Ninian Stephen Fellow at the Asia-Pacific Centre for Military Law at the Law Faculty, University of Melbourne. She was winner (with Christine Chinkin) of the Goler T. Butcher Medal awarded by the American Society of International Law in 2006 for "Outstanding contributions to the development of international human rights law."
She was the inaugural President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law (1997-2001). She was Co-Editor of the Australian Yearbook of International Law from 1996 to 2006 and a member of the Board of Editors of the American Journal of International Law since 1999. She has worked with various non-governmental human rights organisations on ways to implement international human rights standards and was chair of the ACT Government's inquiry into an ACT bill of rights, which culminated in the adoption of the ACT Human Rights Act 2004. She is Patron of the ACT Women's Legal Service and a patron of the Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture.