To view the event video, click here.
Featuring
Elaine Feldman, Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation
David Yocis, Picard, Kentz & Rowe
Matt Gold, Adjunct Professor of Law at Fordham University
Moderator: Charles (Chip) Roh, former Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for North America, and Associate General Counsel at USTR.
Elaine Feldman joined the University of Ottawa’s Centre on Public Management and Policy in 2014 as a senior fellow where she works on the design and delivery of the certificate program in public sector leadership and governance. Her last position before retiring from public service was that of President of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. Prior to joining the agency, Feldman held a number of positions at Foreign Affairs and International Trade, in Ottawa and abroad, including those of Assistant Deputy Minister for North America and Deputy Permanent Representative of Canada to the World Trade Organization. During her career in the federal public service, Feldman led a number of trade negotiations, including the negotiations over softwood lumber with the United States and free trade negotiations with Mercosur and the Americas. She also participated in the Uruguay Round of Trade Negotiations. Feldman is a member of the Law Society of Upper Canada. She has also been a member of three World Trade Organization dispute settlement panels.
Matt Gold is an Adjunct Professor of Law teaching International Trade Law at the Fordham University School of Law. He is also a consultant providing strategic advice to U.S. business in connection with the United States’ rights under international trade treaties to ensure access for U.S. goods and services to foreign markets, and to protect U.S. investments in foreign countries. Professor Gold frequently consults with U.S. business on the renegotiation of NAFTA, other U.S. trade agreements, current U.S. investigations to impose new retaliatory, national security, safeguard, countervailing or antidumping trade barriers, and other aspects of the national and international law, and diplomacy, of international trade. Professor Gold served as the Chairman of the NAFTA Chapter 19 Binational Dispute Settlement Panel In the Matter of Magnesium from Canada (Injury), Full Five-Year Sunset Reviews of Antidumping Duty and Countervailing Duty Orders, USA-CDA-2000-1904-09 (July 16, 2002), 2002 FTAPD Lexis 8 (FTAPD 2002). Professor Gold is also the former Deputy Assistant USTR for North America, in which capacity he was a negotiator with Canada and Mexico, and an advisor to President Obama and USTR Ron Kirk, on all issues arising under NAFTA and other trade issues. He was a principal negotiator at the NAFTA Free Trade Commission meetings, a participant in the talks that brought Canada and Mexico into the TPP negotiations, the Chairman of the U.S. delegation to the U.S.-Canada Softwood Lumber talks, and the Chairman of the U.S. government’s Interagency Softwood Lumber Committee. He was also a trade advisor supporting President Obama for the North American Leaders Summit, and among the trade advisors supporting President Obama for G8, G20, APEC, and Americas summits. Professor Gold practiced international trade and customs law in New York for more than 15 years, near the end of which period he chaired the NAFTA Chapter 19 panel. During 2003-10, Professor Gold served three civilian tours in Iraq for the Defense and State Departments advising Iraq’s Trade Minister and other senior officials on WTO accession, trade agreements, and in trade capacity building. After his Iraq work, Professor Gold joined USTR.
Charles (Chip) Roh served as Assistant U.S. Trade Representative for North America from 1989 to 1994. While in that post, he was the Deputy Chief Negotiator for the United States of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and for the NAFTA accords on labor and the environment. Previously, Mr. Roh was the Associate General Counsel of the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) and legal counsel for the USTR Mission to the GATT in Geneva. In those positions he represented the United States in many GATT dispute settlement proceedings and in the drafting and negotiation of numerous international agreements, including the U.S. – Canada Free Trade Agreement. Prior to those positions, he served in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the Department of State and on the staff of the Senate Finance Committee. From 1994 until retirement at the end of 2014, Chip was a partner in the law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, where he represented U.S. and foreign businesses, associations, NGOs and governments in international dispute settlement proceedings, international arbitrations, and negotiations. He is a graduate of Princeton University and Harvard Law School and taught world trade law as an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
David Yocis is a partner at Picard, Kentz & Rowe. He represents U.S. domestic industry clients on international trade matters before the U.S. Department of Commerce, the U.S. International Trade Commission, and in appeals from decisions of these bodies in the U.S. federal courts, NAFTA Chapter 19 panels, and in the WTO. He also advises clients on a wide variety of customs and trade matters, including textile and apparel issues, trade negotiations, and international dispute resolution. In particular, he coordinates the firm’s day-to-day activities on behalf of the U.S. Lumber Coalition to monitor and enforce the 2006 U.S.-Canada Softwood Lumber Agreement (SLA), working closely with several U.S. government agencies and supporting U.S. efforts in arbitrations under the SLA before the tribunals of the London Court of International Arbitration. He also focuses on providing advice to the firm’s domestic and international clients on matters involving rights and obligations under the WTO agreements. Prior to joining Picard Kentz & Rowe in November 2009, Mr. Yocis served as Associate General Counsel in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR). While at USTR, he led U.S. delegations in all phases of WTO dispute settlement activities, including before the WTO Appellate Body and Panels, in disputes such as the U.S. challenge of subsidies provided to Airbus by EU member States and challenges by multiple WTO Members against U.S. agricultural subsidies. He also advised USTR policy officials on the drafting and implementation of the agricultural and textile provisions of several U.S. free trade agreements, including CAFTA-DR and the Peru Trade Promotion Agreement, and coordinated U.S. responses to countervailing duty actions against allegedly subsidized U.S. products brought in Canada, China, the European Union, and Peru. Mr. Yocis graduated cum laude from the New York University School of Law, where he served as Executive Editor of the NYU Law Review. He has been a member of the United States roster of NAFTA Chapter 19 panelists since 2010.