Directors

Hannes Schloemann, LL.M.

Hannes advises governments, IGOs, NGOs, business associations and corporate clients on a wide range of issues of WTO/trade policy and law. 

He is also a highly experienced trainer and designer of tailor-made trainings, and a tested team leader and manager. His key areas of practice include trade in services (GATS), trade in agricultural and non-agricultural goods, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barriers to trade, subsidies, the WTO’s DDA negotiations, regional trade agreements (EPAs, EuroMed), WTO accessions (law, policy, strategy), WTO dispute settlement and Trade & Climate Change.

Projects & Cases : 

Current or recent professional engagements include, for example:

  • Co-author of a study on the WTO accession of four Commonwealth countries (The Bahamas, Samoa, the Seychelles and Vanuatu) (Commonwealth Secretariat)
  • Team Leader/Alternate Team Leader and Expert for Agriculture, Services, Development Issues and other DDA issues advising the ACP Group in Geneva on the DDA
  • Co-author of a major opinion on climate change-related trade issues (int’l institution) 
  • Trainer and research supervisor on WTO law issues (specifically Agriculture, SPS and TRIPS) for a group of young law professors/lecturers in Ethiopia
  • Advisor to the Palestinian Ministry of Economy on WTO observership & accession
  • Drafter of a new “Trade Development Act” and accompanying import and export regulations for the Kingdom of Bhutan
  • Speaker at specialist workshops for ACP countries on EPA & WTO legal issues in Brussels (all ACP), Johannesburg (SADC EPA), Accra (ECOWAS) and Mombasa (Kenya)
  • Consultant/trainer for the Office of the Government of Vietnam on ensuring WTO- compatible legislation
Publications & Appearances: 

Hannes publishes regularly on WTO/trade law, teaches at several academic institutions and is a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on WTO/trade matters. His publications include, e.g.:

  • Cutting the Regulatory Edge? Services Regulation Disciplines in the CARIFORUM EPA (with C. Pitschas); Does Cotonou Require IP Chapters in EPAs? A Legal Reality Check; TRIPS plus and TRIPS minus in EPAs: An Article-by-Article Analysis of the 2007 Draft SADC EPA; all in: GTZ Reader on EPAs, 2009
  • Brazil Tyres: Policy Space Confirmed under GATT Article XX (Note on the WTO AB Report in Brazil–Tyres), Bridges Monthly (Feb 2008)
  • Preparing for Negotiations on the Liberalization of Services and Investment – A “Vademecum” Toolkit for Consultations within the Palestinian Services Industries (with G. Salem & H. Hijazi) (2006)
  • “Constitutionalization” and Dispute Settlement in the WTO: National Security as an Issue of Competence, 93 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW 424-451 (1999) (with S. Ohlhoff); received the ASIL’s Francis Deák Award for this article.
  • Rational Allocation of Disputes and “Constitutionalization”: Forum Choices as an Issue of Competence, in: DISPUTE RESOLUTION IN THE WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION 302-329 (J. Cameron & K. Campbell, eds.) (1998) (with S. Ohlhoff)
Background & Languages: 

Hannes is a German national. He studied in Heidelberg (State Exam), Geneva and New York. He holds an LL.M. from New York University and is a member of the Berlin and New York Bars and is registered as a foreign lawyer with the Geneva Bar. Before establishing WTI Advisors he was a trade lawyer with Baker & McKenzie in Berlin and London.

Hannes speaks and writes fluently English, French and his native German, operates reasonably comfortably in Spanish and Italian and speaks some Arabic.