Cornell Law School and Peking University ("Beida") are co-sponsoring a major international conference in Beijing.

Designed to stimulate thinking about future relations between the United States and China in the context of the global trading system, the "Cornell-Beida Conference on the WTO System," May 22-24, will bring together leading authorities on the World Trade Organization (WTO). The conference will emphasize developments in the "Doha Round" of multilateral negotiations, scheduled to conclude by the end of 2006 but mired in controversy over agricultural issues. The conference will also examine the impact of the ever-expanding number of regional and bilateral preferential trade arrangements on the WTO system.

U.S. Ambassador to China Clark J. Randt Jr. will address the conference at its opening dinner, Monday, May 22. Chinese Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai also is expected to speak at the event.

Conference speakers include a number of high-ranking trade experts from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, noted Chinese academics specializing in the WTO, as well as Cornell invitees including: Kim Chulsu, former WTO deputy director-general and former Korean minister of trade and industry; Kym Anderson, lead economist (trade policy), Development Research Group, World Bank, and professor of economics, University of Adelaide, Australia; John Weeks, former Canadian ambassador to the WTO and chairman of the WTO General Council; and Kim Kihwan, international chair of the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council, chair of the Seoul Financial Forum and Korea's former ambassador-at-large for economic affairs.

For Cornell, building research and exchange partnerships with top Chinese universities remains an important strategic priority.

"The Cornell-Beida WTO conference will deepen the already close relationship between Cornell and Beida," said David Wippman, Cornell vice provost for international relations and Cornell Law School professor of law. The conference is being co-chaired by John J. Barceló III, the W.N. Cromwell Professor of International and Comparative Law at Cornell Law School and an expert on the WTO. Stewart J. Schwab, Cornell Law School's Allan R. Tessler Dean, will address the conference, as will former Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman, currently a member of Cornell's law faculty and president of the Joint Center for China-U.S. Law and Policy Studies.