Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz
Co‐founder and Chief Executive of ICTSD
Before, he represented Colombia as a negotiator in various multilateral processes, including as permanent delegate of Colombia in Geneva and the GATT’s Uruguay Round, the UNCED process, UNCTAD VIII, the Climate Change Convention, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Montreal Protocol. He acted as spokesperson for the G77 in several fora and as chair of the UN Standing Committees on Commodities and on Trade Preferences. Earlier, he served as Principal Advisor to the Colombian Minister of Economic Development and as Chief of Administration of the Office of the President of Colombia.
Since 1997, Mr. Meléndez‐Ortiz has been the publisher of BRIDGES and its sister publications, and has been a regular speaker and panellist worldwide on trade, sustainable development and global economic governance. He serves on several international policy initiatives, including the board of Intellectual Property Watch (Geneva), the steering committees of DfID’s Global Trade and Finance Architecture Initiative, and of the UN Sustainable Development Knowledge Partnership; also as member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Trade and of the Forum’s Working Group on Trade and Climate Change.
In the past, he has served on the U.N. Secretary General Millennium Project Task Force on Trade, and the WTO’s Director General NGO Advisory Group. Mr. Meléndez‐Ortiz studied at Harvard University and the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. Some of his recent publications include “Envisioning a Sustainable Development Agenda for Trade and Environment” (co‐authored with A. Najam and M. Halle, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) and as co‐editor of “Rebuilding Global Trade: Proposals for A Fairer, More Sustainable Future” (with C. Deere, Global Economic Governance Programme at Oxford U. and ICTSD, 2009); “Agricultural Subsidies in the WTO Gree Box Ensuring Coherence with Sustainable Development Goals” (Cambridge U. Press, 2009); “Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development: Development Agendas in a Changing World” (Edward Elgar, 2010); and, “WTO Dispute Settlement: The Developing Country Experience» (Cambridge U. Press, forthcoming November 2010).