James Bacchus

James Bacchus is an international statesman, jurist, educator, scholar, and writer. He is the Distinguished University Professor of Global Affairs and Director of the Center for Global Economic and Environmental Opportunity at the University of Central Florida. He was a founding judge and was twice the Chairman – the chief judge – of the highest tribunal of world trade, the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. He is a former Member of the Congress of the United States, from Florida, and a former international trade negotiator for the United States.

In addition to his various academic roles, Professor Bacchus has served in judicial, legislative, and administrative positions of responsibility at every level of global governance. In 2024, he received the prestigious global Weeramantry International Justice Award for his service, his scholarship, and his commitment to international law, peace, and sustainable development, and for his global humanism and leadership in the law.

Background

Professor Bacchus is a member of the 11-member Advisory Committee to the 55-country Global Green Growth Institute based in Seoul, South Korea. He served on the High-Level Advisory Panel to the Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change during the negotiation of the Paris climate agreement and is on the Leadership Council of the United States chapter of the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which is working to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals. In addition, he chaired, for eleven years, the global Commission on Trade and Investment Policy of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris, and he chaired the global council on sustainability governance of the World Economic Forum in Davos.

He is an Associate of the Senior Common Room at King’s College, a frequent Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, a member of the Advisory Council of Cambridge Governance Labs, and a fellow of climaTRACES Lab, all of the University of Cambridge. He is also Honorary Professor in the Department of Economics of the Business School of the University of Sussex.  He has been the Pao Yue-Kong Chair Professor at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China, and is an Honorary Professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, China.

Professor Bacchus is a leading advocate and activist worldwide for international cooperation, international trade, the international rule of law, participatory global democracy, and global sustainable development. He works locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally with a growing collaborative network of experts, activists, and other volunteers to foster links to sustainable development at every level and to explore new forms of governance at every level that increase democratic participation and that create economic and social inclusion and protect, preserve, and regenerate the environment throughout the world.

As an international jurist, Professor Bacchus is a chairperson on the list of arbitrators appointed by Canada and the European Union under their Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, a chairperson on the list of arbitrators appointed by the European Union to resolve trade and sustainable development disputes, a member of the Chapter 24 panel of experts arbitration roster of the Canada-United Kingdom Trade Continuity Agreement, an arbitrator for the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration in China, and a member of the list of chairpersons for international arbitration under the CARIFORUM Economic Partnership Agreement between the European Union and the CARIFORUM states of the Caribbean.

He is an Adjunct Scholar of the Cato Institute, Senior Research Fellow of the Earth System Governance Project, Global Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation, Senior Fellow of the Centre for International Sustainable Development Law, Distinguished Global Fellow of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy, and elected life member of the Council on Foreign Relations. For more than fourteen years (2004-2017), he chaired the global practice of one of the largest law firms in the United States and in the world, Greenberg Traurig.

Research

In addition to numerous peer-viewed and journalistic articles and essays, Professor Bacchus is the author of the books Trade and Freedom (Cameron May, 2004); The Willing World: Shaping and Sharing a Sustainable Global Prosperity (Cambridge University Press, 2018), named by the Financial Times as one of the “Best Books of the Year” and chosen that year as the featured book at the 2018 annual global public forum of the WTO; The Development Dimension: Special and Differential Treatment in Trade, with co-author Inu Manak (Routledge Press, 2021); Trade Links: New Rules for a New World (Cambridge University Press, 2022), named by the Financial Times as one of the “Best Books of the Summer” and chosen also as the featured book at the 2022 annual global public forum of the WTO; Truth About Trade: Reflections on International Trade and Law (World Scientific Publishing, 2023); and, most recently, Democracy for a Sustainable World: The Path from the Pnyx (Cambridge University Press, 2025), named by the Financial Times as one of the “Best Books of the Summer” of 2025 and chosen also as the featured book at the 2025 annual global forum of the WTO. He is one of the three co-editors of the Cambridge Handbook on Human Rights and Sustainable Development, forthcoming from Cambridge University Press.

Research Interests

• International law, international trade, sustainable development, and democracy, and the nexus among them.
• Global governance and the design and actions of institutions to address global concerns requiring international cooperation.
• Identifying the best means for the pursuit of sustainable growth to achieve human flourishing for all on a thriving Earth.