Isabelle VAN DAMME

Dr. Isabelle Van Damme is a Professor of International Economic Law, Director of Studies and Deputy Managing Director at the World Trade Institute and the University of Bern, and of counsel at Van Bael & Bellis. She also serves as the Executive Vice-President of the Society of International Economic Law and teaches EU trade law and policy at the College of Europe in Bruges. 

Previously, Dr. Van Damme was a Partner at Van Bael & Bellis, with a practice covering WTO law, EU law and public international law. She has represented States and individuals before various courts and tribunals, including the CJEU, FTA panels, WTO panels and the Appellate Body. In the area of trade law, she has represented WTO Members before WTO panels and the Appellate Body in dispute settlement proceedings involving export quotas and duties, accession protocols, export licensing, technical barriers to trade, transit restrictions, administration and review of trade measures, general exceptions and the essential security exception, minimum export pricing, discriminatory taxation and customs valuation. Her experience of acting and advising as counsel in cases before the Court of Justice of the European Union includes cases relating to Brexit, EU tobacco legislation, the retroactive application of trade remedies, sanctions, access to documents, EU staff regulations, and cases involving the relevance under EU law of the status of disputed territories under international law. She has appeared several times as an expert before different committees of the United Kingdom’s House of Commons, speaking on the implications of Brexit on agriculture and the matter of the Irish border.

Dr. Van Damme has also served as a référendaire in the chambers of Advocate General Sharpston at the CJEU, worked at a Geneva-based firm specialised in WTO law and taught at the University of Cambridge. Her main publications include a monograph on Treaty Interpretation by the WTO Appellate Body (OUP) and A Commentary on the WTO Anti-Dumping Agreement (CUP). She is also co-editor of the first and second editions of The Oxford Handbook of International Trade Law (OUP). She holds degrees from the University of Ghent (Bachelor of Law, Master of Laws), Georgetown University Law Center (LL.M.) and the University of Cambridge (Ph.D. in Law).

Dr. Van Damme is included in the European Union’s “List of Candidates for Appointment as Arbitrators and TSD Experts”.