Dominic Coppens is Professor of International Economic Law at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, where he co-directs the Institute for Globalization and International Regulation (IGIR).  He is also a Senior Advisor at Sidley Austin (until the end of October) and will become an independent legal advisor and consultant on international and EU sustainability and trade matters from November onwards. In that capacity, he will serve as Senior Fellow on Trade, Climate & Sustainable Development at TESS.

Dominic has extensive litigation experience in both international trade and environmental law.  He was a member of Sidley’s team representing, pro bono, Antigua and Barbuda before the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and the African Union and the Comoros before the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in advisory proceedings on climate change.  He has represented WTO Members throughout all stages of WTO dispute settlement.  Dominic has advised countries and companies on a wide range of EU Green Deal measures and on international sustainability initiatives. He is, for example, actively involved in the negotiations for a global plastics treaty. 

Dominic was part of the expert group convened by TESS to develop guidance on principles of international law relevant to the design and implementation of trade-related climate measures and policies. He also served on the International Law Association’s (ILA) Committee on Sustainable Development and the Green Economy in International Trade Law. He has further contributed to recent research on options for international fossil fuel subsidy reform and on the transition to a circular economy. Dominic is the author of WTO Disciplines on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures: Balancing Policy Space and Legal Constraints (CUP, 2014), a leading treatise on WTO subsidy law, including from both sustainability and development perspectives.