Professor Gregory Shaffer is the Melvin C. Steen Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. He previously was the first Wing-Tat Lee Chair of International Law at Loyola University in Chicago, and before that, a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he also was Director the University of Wisconsin's European Union Center of Excellence and Co-Director of its Center on World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE).
He teaches courses in a number of subject areas, including international law, international trade law, European Union law, and administrative law, and conducts a variety of research seminars. He received his B.A., magna cum laude, from Dartmouth College in 1980 and his J.D., with distinction, from Stanford Law School in 1988. He earlier practiced law in Paris for seven years for Coudert Frères and Bredin Prat, where he was a member of the Paris bar.
Professor Shaffer's publications include The International Law and Politics of Genetically Modified Foods (forthcoming, with Mark Pollack, 2009), Defending Interests: Public-Private Partnerships in WTO Litigation (Brookings Institution Press, 2003), Transatlantic Governance in the Global Economy (with Mark Pollack, Rowman & Littlefield 2001), and more than 50 articles and book chapters on international trade law, global governance, and globalization's impact on domestic regulation.
Professor Shaffer's work is cross-disciplinary and empirical, addressing such topics as public-private networks in international trade litigation; comparative institutional approaches to handling trade-social policy conflicts; and national regulation in global context. His articles have been published in the Yale Journal of International Law, Harvard Environmental Law Review, NYU Journal of International Law and Politics, Cornell International Law Journal, Law and Contemporary Problems, Journal of International Economic Law, American Journal of International Law, Columbia Journal of European Law, World Trade Review, Journal of World Trade, European Law Journal, Journal of European Public Policy, and The Washington Quarterly, among others.
Professor Shaffer is a recipient of two U.S. National Science Foundation grants for his empirical work on developing country participation in WTO dispute settlement, and on conflicts involving international trade and environmental policies. In 2007 he was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Rome. He has also been designated a Visiting Scholar at the American Bar Foundation (2004) and at Columbia Law School (2002), and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at DePaul University College of Law (2003). Among his numerous presentations, he was a speaker at three of the five conferences organized by the WTO Appellate Body for its tenth anniversary in 2005, held in Tokyo, Cairo and Sao Paulo.
When Cooperation Fails: The International Law and Politics of Genetically Modified Foods (Oxford University Press, 2009) (with Mark A. Pollack)
The Future of Transatlantic Economic Relations: Continuity Amid Discord (European University Institute, Florence, 2005) (conference volume) (with Mark A. Pollack, Helen Wallace & David Andrews)
Defending Interests: Public Private Partnerships in W.T.O. Litigation (Brookings Institution Press, 2003)
Transatlantic Governance in the Global Economy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2001) (co-editor with Mark A. Pollack)
Law Review Publications
Hard vs. Soft Law: Alternatives, Complements and Antagonists in International Governance, Minnesota Law Review (forthcoming 2009) (with Mark A. Pollack)
A Structural Approach to WTO Jurisprudence: Why Institutional Choice Lies at the Center of the GMO Case, 41 New York University Journal of International Law and Politics 1 (2008)
The Trials of Winning at the WTO: What Lies Behind Brazil's Success, 41 Cornell International Law Journal 383-501 (2008) (with Michelle Ratton Sanchez & Barbara Rosenberg)
Transnational Mutual Recognition Regimes: Governance Without Global Government, 68 Law and Contemporary Problems (Duke Law School) 263-317 (Summer/Autumn 2005) (with Kalypso Nicolaidis)
Reconciling Trade and Regulatory Goals: The Prospects and Limits of New Approaches to Transatlantic Governance Through Mutual Recognition and Safe Harbor Agreements, 9 Columbia Journal of European Law 29-77 (2002)
The World Trade Organization under Challenge: Democracy and the Law and Politics of the WTO's Treatment of Trade and Environment Matters, 25 Harvard Environmental Law Review 1-93 (2001)
Globalization and Social Protection: The Impact of EU and International Rules in the Ratcheting Up of U.S. Privacy Standards, 25 Yale Journal of International Law 1-88 (2000)
WTO Blue-Green Blues: The Impact of U.S. Domestic Politics on Trade-Labor, Trade-Environment Linkages for the WTO's Future, 24 Fordham International Law Journal 608-651 (2000) (special issue: "The World Trade Organization, Globalization, and the Future of International Trade")
Transatlantic Economic Relations: Continuity Amid Discord, 5 European Political Science (Journal of the European Consortium for Political Research) 62-68 (2006) (with Mark A. Pollack)
What's New in EU Dispute Settlement? Judicialization, Public-Private Networks and the WTO Legal Order, 13 Journal of European Public Policy 832-850 (2006)
Institutional Choice in the Generalized System of Preferences Case: Who Decides the Conditions for Trade Preferences? The Law and Politics of Rights, 39 Journal of World Trade 977-1008 (2005) (with Yvonne Apea)
The Role of the Director-General and Secretariat: Chapter IX of the Sutherland Report, 4 World Trade Review 429-438 (2005) (special issue: "Reflections on the 10th Anniversary of the WTO")
Recognizing Public Goods in WTO Dispute Settlement: Who Participates? Who Decides?: The Case of TRIPS and Pharmaceutical Patent Protection, 7 Journal of International Economic Law 459-482 (2004)
Biotechnology: The Next Transatlantic Trade War?, 23 The Washington Quarterly 41-54 (Autumn 2000) (with Mark A. Pollack)
Book Chapters
Agricultural Biotechnology Policy in the EU: Between National Fears and Global Disciplines, in Policy-Making in the European Union (Helen Wallace, William Wallace & Mark A. Pollack, eds., 6th ed., Oxford University Press, 2010) (with Mark A. Pollack)
Developing Country Use of the WTO Dispute Settlement System: Why It Matters, the Barriers Posed, and Its Impact on Bargaining, in Trade Disputes and the Dispute Settlement Understanding of the WTO: An Interdisciplinary Assessment (James Hartigan, ed., Emerald, 2009)
A New Legal Realism: Method in International Economic Law Scholarship, in International Economic Law: The State and Future of the Discipline 29-42 (Colin B. Picker, Isabella D. Bunn & Douglas W. Arner, eds., Hart Publishing, 2008)
Risk Regulation, GMOs and the Limits of Deliberation, in Unveiling the Council of the European Union: Games Governments Play in Brussels 144-164 (Daniel Naurin & Helen Wallace, eds., Palgrave MacMillan, 2008) (with Mark A. Pollack)
Biotechnology Policy: Between National Fears and Global Disciplines, in Policy-Making in the European Union 329-352 (Helen Wallace, William Wallace & Mark A. Pollack, eds., Oxford University Press, 5th ed., 2005) (with Mark A. Pollack)
Power, Governance and the WTO: A Comparative Institutional Approach, in Power in Global Governance 130-160 (Michael Barnett & Raymond Duvall, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2005)
Managing US-EU Trade Relations through Mutual Recognition and Safe Harbor Agreements: "New" and "Global" Approaches to Transatlantic Economic Governance?, in Transatlantic Economic Disputes: The EU, the US, and the WTO 297-325 (Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann & Mark A. Pollack, eds., Oxford University Press, 2003)
"If Only We Were Elephants": The Political Economy of the WTO's Treatment of Trade and Environment Matters, in The Political Economy of International Trade Law: Essays in Honor of Robert E. Hudec 349-393 (Daniel L. M. Kennedy and James D. Southwick, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2002)
Publications in Translation
Weaknesses and proposed improvements to the WTO Dispute Settlement System: an economic and market view, in 10 Anos de OMC: Uma analise do Sistema de Solucao de Controversias e Perspectivas (Luiz Olavo Baptista, Umberto Celli Junior & Alan Yanovich, eds., Edicoes Aduaneiras, 2006) (edited volume in Portuguese)
"Public-private Partnerships" in WTO Dispute Settlement: The US and EU Experience, in The WTO in the Twenty-first Century: Dispute Settlement, Negotiations, and Regionalism in Asia (Yasuhei Taniguchi, Alan Yanovich & Jan Bohanes, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2007) (Japanese translation published in Kokusai-Shoji-Homu (Journal of the Japanese Institute of International Business Law) (Fall 2005))
Les Differentes Approches de la Securite Alimentaire (Comparaison Union europeen/Etats Unis), in La securite alimentaire dans l'union europeenne (Jacques Bourrinet & Francis Snyder, eds., CERIC, 2003) (with Mark A. Pollack)
Honors & Fellowships
American Society of International Law, Executive Council (appointed 2009)
Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow, European University Institute, Fiesole, Italy (Jan.-May 2009)
Affiliated Scholar, University of Wisconsin, Institute for Legal Studies (2007-present)
Fulbright Grant, Senior Research Scholar, Rome, Italy, Office at UN Food and Agricultural Organization and at Italian Constitutional Court (Jan.-June 2007)
National Science Foundation Law and Social Science Awards (Two received for empirical work; around $200,000 total)
NSF-funded International Research Collaborative, Law and Society Association
Transnational Transformations of the State, Coordinator (Jan. 2006- present)
Senior Research Fellow, International Centre on Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), WTO and developing countries (2004-present)
Co-Director, University of Wisconsin Center on World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE) (May 2004-July 2006)
Director, UW European Union Center of Excellence (May 2004-July 2006)
University of Wisconsin Vilas Award (Research award from UW; $85,000 award for 2004-2006)
Visiting Scholar, American Bar Foundation (Jan.-Aug. 2004)
Distinguished Visiting Professor, DePaul University College of Law (Fall 2003)
Visiting Scholar, Columbia Law School (Fall semester 2002)
Professor Shaffer is organizing a series of major collaborative projects, in addition to his own work. One project concerns the development of a new legal realism in legal scholarship for which he is preparing two papers. He is organizing panels on this subject at the AALS and Law and Society Association (LSA) Annual Meetings in 2009. He is the organizer of a collaborative research network on Law and Transnational Transformations of the State, for which he is working on a special issue. He is coordinator of the Collaborative Research Network Transnational Legal Orders for the Law and Society Association which brings together scholars working in this area for panels at the LSA meetings. He is Senior Research Fellow for the International Centre on Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD) in Geneva with which he is editing a volume on developing country experiences with the WTO dispute settlement system, tentatively entitled Field Guide to WTO Dispute Settlement: Nine Developing Country Case Studies. He is working on a book manuscript on this subject, entitled The “Rule of Law” in the World Trade Organization: Do the “Haves” Come Out Ahead?” He is preparing chapters for Oxford handbooks on empirical studies of international law (with Tom Ginsburg), and on the relation of law and business. He will be presenting a new paper on the interaction of hard and soft law in a fragmented international legal order at conferences in Cambridge and Geneva, and a paper on law, expertise and regulatory politics at Yale. He is also finalizing a paper with Marc Busch and Eric Reinhardt on The Role of Legal Capacity in WTO Dispute Settlement, based on a survey of WTO members. In the spring of 2009 he will be a Fernand Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. He will join the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law and will co-direct the section on International Economic Law.
