Executive Director
Advisory Centre on WTO Law

Mr. Roessler was educated in Germany, Switzerland and the United States. He obtained a Ph.D. in law from the University of Freiburg i.Br. in Germany and a Master of Arts from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in the United States. After completing his legal training in Germany, he worked for the World Bank and then for the GATT and the World Trade Organization. In 1989 he was appointed Director of Legal Affairs, a post which he held until 1995 when he joined the faculty of law of Georgetown University in Washington, DC. Mr. Roessler's main task at the GATT and the WTO was to advise dispute settlement panels and to prepare drafts of their reports or supervise their preparation by his staff. He was also closely involved in the legal aspects of the Uruguay Round negotiations and participated in the legal drafting process at the end of the Round. After leaving the WTO, Mr. Roessler remained actively involved in WTO legal matters. He advised WTO Members involved in WTO dispute settlement proceedings and worked as a consultant on WTO-related matters for governments, professional organisations and law firms.

Mr. Roessler was an adjunct professor at the Jean Moulin University of Lyon and at Paris I. He also taught at the universities of St. Gallen in Switzerland and of Minnesota in the United States. Between 1995 and 1998 he gave courses and seminars at Georgetown University on international economic law, the external relations and trade policies of the EC, WTO dispute settlement procedures (with Prof. John Jackson), and trade and the environment (with Prof. Edith Brown-Weiss). He published extensively, mainly in the field of international trade law. A collection of his essays was published in 2000 by Cameron May ("The Legal Structure, Limits and Functions of the World Trade Order"). Mr. Roessler was born in 1939 in Germany. His mother tongue is German. He speaks English and French fluently and is able to read Spanish.