Our History

Membership organization for academics and academically-minded practitioners and officials in international economic law, in all parts of the world.​

SIEL is a membership organization for academics and academically-minded practitioners and officials in international economic law, in all parts of the world. It promotes and facilitates co-ordination, collaboration, networking and debate between IEL scholars and practitioners and national and regional IEL organizations around the world. SIEL is academically focused, global in reach and outlook, inclusive in its membership and in the expertise and interests of our members.

SIEL is registered in the UK, governed by its SIEL Articles of Incorporation (as amended 2023) & SIEL Memorandum of Incorporation.

Started with an initial idea

The initial idea of a global organization for the field was first discussed at the ASIL-IELG’s November 2006 conference, aptly held at the historic Mount Washington Resort in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.

Shortly thereafter, some of the participants at that conference put together the Founding Committee, and then the Founding Executive Council.  Subsequently, on May 24-25 2007, there was a planning meeting at the LSE to allow the Founding Committee, Executive Council and others to discuss our shared vision for SIEL. The input we received from the participants at that meeting has helped us to clarify and advance our vision of what the SIEL will do and be, and how it ought to be structured and governed going forward.

Our inaugural conference, along with the formal launch of SIEL, was held in July 2008, at the Centre on Trade and Economic Integration, at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

Professor Don McRae of the University of Ottowa served as the Interim President of SIEL.  The Co-Chairs of the Founding Committee, Andrew Lang and Colin Picker,  led  a fifteen-member Founding Committee comprising Lorand BartelsTomer BroudeIsabelle BunnMelaku DestaDevashish KrishnanSimon LesterMeredith Kolsky LewisBryan MercurioJunji NakagawaFederico OrtinoAmy PorgesMichelle Ratton SanchezChantal ThomasTodd  Weiler, and Galina Zukova.

Past Conference

Founding Executive Council

The Founding Executive Council comprised (in alphabetical order, with their affiliations at the time of foundation):

Bhupinder Chimni

Jawaharlal Nehru University

Thomas Cottier

University of Berne

James R. Crawford

University of Cambridge

Piet Eeckhout

Kings College London

Florentino Feliciano

SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan

Wang Guiguo

City University of Hong Kong

Robert Howse

University of Michigan Law School

Valerie Hughes

Department of Finance, Canadian Government

John H. Jackson

Georgetown University Law Center

Julio Lacarte

Former Member and Chairman, WTO Appellate Body

Rosa Maria Lastra

Queen Mary, University of London

Yong-Shik Lee

St. John's University School of Law

Andreas Lowenfeld

New York University

Gabrielle Marceau

Cabinet of the Director-General, World Trade Organisation

Mitsuo Matsushita

University of Tokyo

Petros Mavroidis

Columbia Law School; University de Neuchatel

Donald M. McRae

University of Ottawa

Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann

European University Institute

Don H. Regan

University of Michigan Law School

Helene Ruiz Fabri

Universite Paris I - Pantheon Sorbonne

Dan Sarooshi

University of Oxford

Christoph H. Schreuer

University of Vienna

Joanne Scott

University College London

Gregory C. Shaffer

Loyola University, Chicago

Francis Snyder

Universite d'Aix-Marseille III; LSE

M. Sornarajah

National University of Singapore

Debra P. Steger

University of Ottawa

Joel P. Trachtman

Fletcher School, Tufts University

Michael Trebilcock

University of Toronto

Ko-Yung Tung

Morrison & Foerster LLP; Visitor, Yale Law School

Peter Van den Bossche

University of Maastricht

Thomas Walde

University of Dundee

Joseph H.H.Weiler

New York University

Edith Brown Weiss

Georgetown University

James Whitelaw

Secretary General of the MERCOSUR Dispute Section
Latest Publications

Recent publications & the SIEL Newsletter