How we can help you

We provide advice, analysis, training, coaching and direct in-room support to governments and other stakeholders in the context of multilateral, regional and bilateral negotiations. We advise individual countries and groups of countries in WTO negotiations, FTA and other trade and investment negotiations and broader regional integration processes. We also provide national and international lobbying services, assist with stakeholder consultations and polls. We generate and manage targeted outreach communications and tools, such as business guides and success stories relating to specific FTAs.

We provide advice, consultations and drafting support in trade (and investment) policy making and regulation, within and outside the context of trade agreements and economic integration processes. Examples include advisory support to Nigeria on the reform of its trade policy, to Palestine in developing its trade policy, to Viet Nam in complying with WTO commitments.

We support WTO Members and Observers in their work with and in the organisation, in WTO councils, committees, working parties and other contexts, and in the context of WTO Ministerial Conference meetings. We conceptualise and facilitate meetings, draft interventions, help coordinate position papers, compose proposals and support consultations, including with the WTO Secretariat.

We provide assistance to governments and other stakeholders of acceding countries from obtaining observership status to managing post-accession processes and reforms. We have worked in the context of the accessions/observerships of Afghanistan, Bhutan, The Bahamas, Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kosovo, Laos, Lebanon, Palestine, Serbia, Somalia, Sudan, Uzbekistan, Viet Nam and Yemen.

A fast-changing international trade and investment world needs analysis of challenges as well as creative design of responses – national, regional, plurilateral, multilateral. We conduct studies and provide opinions on trade- and investment-related issues. Topics in recent years have included such diverse things as services exports of LDCs; options for WTO-compatible climate-related trade measures; sanctions of various players against Russia, Belarus, and/or others; security exceptions; critical raw materials; and deforestation and trade.

We design conduct tailor-made trainings and courses on virtually all aspects of international trade regulation and policy, including high-intensity hybrid trainings and coaching for diplomats and other government officials in the immediate WTO meeting context in Geneva. We design and moderate stakeholder consultations in the context of trade policy making and negotiations.

Conflicts are part of life, and dispute settlement is a key ingredient of the world’s trade and investment constitution. We advise and represent governments and other clients in the context of WTO and other dispute settlement proceedings. We also advise and coach governments on enhancing their dispute settlement capacities.

Sustainability is a key concern of our time, and one of the main things we do. We advise and support governments and other clients on virtually all matters at the interfaces of trade and climate change, environment, social inclusion and other aspects of sustainability. We have worked on CBAM and other trade-related climate change mitigation and adaptation measures; emissions trading; the EUDR and other forestry-related policy initiatives from both producer and importer perspectives; TSD chapters in EU FTAs and other agreements; and the TESSD process at the WTO.

Businesses (and governments) need to know, understand and navigate the actual on-the-ground regulation of trade and investment, both in home and in target markets. We facilitate that in all its facets. We provide regulatory information for businesses on the EU’s 16 top services export markets for the European Commission’s new tool “My Trade Assistant for Services and Investment” on the Access2Markets website. We have pioneered the first self-assessments under the new/emerging “Agreement on Investment Facilitation for Development” (IFD). We have assisted a large group of WTO Members in their work on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT). And we assist clients on export controls and sanctions compliance.