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James Bacchus

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Photo of James Bacchus

Visiting Professor of Law .Shareholder, Greenberg Traurig

Voice: 202-331-3100
Fax: 202-331-3101
Email: bacchusj@gtlaw.com
Personal Website

Area(s) of Expertise

International trade law, WTO litigation

Education

J.D., Florida State University College of Law
M.A., Yale University (Woodrow Wilson Fellow)
B.A., Vanderbilt University

Biography

James Bacchus leads Greenberg Traurig's worldwide practice on trade policies, remedies, negotiations, disputes, arbitrations, and other international trade issues. In particular, he offers legal, political, and strategic advice to worldwide clients based on his unique experience with the many issues relating to the global rules for trade and commerce of the World Trade Organization. He is a former judge on the highest international tribunal of world trade, a former Member of the Congress of the United States, and a former Special Assistant to the United States Trade Representative in the Executive Office of the President.

During an eight-year leave of absence from Greenberg Traurig, Professor Bacchus served as chairman of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization, court of final appeal in international trade in Geneva, Switzerland. The seven judges of the Appellate Body hear final appeals in international trade disputes involving the 95 percent of world commerce conducted by the more than five billion people in the 150 countries and other customs territories that are the Members of the WTO. Bacchus returned to Greenberg Traurig in 2004, having served two terms on the Appellate Body. He was a founding Member, and remains the longest-serving Member, of the highest global trade tribunal. He was twice appointed by consensus of the Members of the WTO, and was twice elected chairman by his six colleagues. During his eight years of service to the WTO, he was the only American, and the only North American, on the Appellate Body.

Professor Bacchus has a comprehensive knowledge of the more than 30,000 pages of global trade rules in the WTO treaty, and he has written many of the more than 30,000 pages of rulings that have clarified those rules in WTO dispute settlement. He has participated in more cases in the WTO, and has presided in more appeals in the WTO, than anyone else in the world. He is the only member of the Appellate Body to have served on the tribunal during all of the 60 appeals in the first eight years of the new international trade institution, which is the global successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade - the GATT. His final decision for the WTO was as the presiding judge in the appeal in the complaint by the European Union, Japan, China, Brazil, and other WTO Members against a safeguard measure by the United States restricting imports of steel. In addition to his service at the WTO, Bacchus has also served as U.S. Congressman 1991 to 1995, representing the 15th Congressional District of Florida. His district included much of Orlando, Walt Disney World, Cape Canaveral, and the "Space Coast" of Central Florida. He was elected to two terms in the Congress, and chose not to seek election to a third term. He was the first Democrat in the history of the South elected to an open seat in the Congress in a district where Republicans outnumbered Democrats.

In addition to his current role with Greenberg Traurig, Bacchus is a visiting professor of law at Vanderbilt University Law School in Nashville, Tennessee. He is a member of the International Law Association, the International Bar Association and the American, District of Columbia, and Florida Bar Associations.

Representative Publications

Books

  • Trade and Freedom (Cameron May, 2004)

Articles

  • "Appellators: The Quest for the Meaning of and/or," 4:3 World Trade Review 499-523 (2005)

  • "Chains Across the Rhine," 58 Amicus Curiae, Journal of the Society of Advanced Legal Studies 10-15(March/April 2005)

  • "The Aristotelian, Law in the Service of Human Dignity," in Essays in Honour of Florentino Feliciano (Cambridge University Press, 2005)

  • "The Garden," 28:2 Fordham International Law Journal (2005)

  • "A Few Thoughts on Legitimacy, Democracy, and the WTO," 7:3 Journal of International Economic Law 667 (2004)

  • "Lone Star: The Historic Role of the WTO," 39:3 University of Texas, Texas International Law Journal (2004)

  • "The Strange Death of Sir Francis Bacon: The Do's and Don'ts of Appellate Advocacy in the WTO," 31:1 Legal Issues of Economic Integration 13-24 (2004)

  • The WTO Must Open Up its Trade Dispute Proceedings, 5:2 European Affairs 88-92 (2004)

  • Trade and Truth - Advice for Americans from an Advocate for Trade, 5:5 The Journal of World Investment & Trade (2004)

  • "Turning to Tacitus," 37:3 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 631 (2004)

  • "Thoreau's Pencil: Sharpening Our Understanding of World Trade," 30:4 Florida State University Law Review 911 ( 2003)

  • "Groping Toward Grotius: The WTO and the International Rule of Law," 44:2 Harvard International Law Journal (2003)

  • "The Bicycle Club: Affirming the American Interest in the Future of the WTO," 37: 3 Journal of World Trade 429 (2003)

  • "Table Talk: Around the Table of the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization," 35:4 Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 1021 (2002), 1021



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