Frederick M. Abbott

Frederick Abbott is the Edward Ball Eminent Scholar Professor of Law. He is highly regarded for his scholarship and professional activities primarily focused on intellectual property (U.S. and international), international trade, public health and competition/antitrust. He has served as expert consultant and legal advisor for a range of international organizations, regional and national governments, and for non-governmental organizations. He has represented governments in international dispute settlement proceedings. He serves as a dispute settlement panelist for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Arbitration and Mediation Center (since 2000), he is on the panel of arbitrators for the EU-Cariforum Economic Partnership, for the South China International Arbitration Center (Hong Kong-SCHIAK) and for the Shenzhen Court of International Arbitration (SCIA). He is on the Editorial Board of the WIPO-WTO Colloquium Series, and he served on the Editorial Board of Oxford’s Journal of International Economic Law from 1998 to 2023. He is currently Co-Chair of the Global Health Law Committee of the International Law Association, having served as Rapporteur for the Committee on International Trade Law from 1993 to 2014.

In 1977, Prof. Abbott began his professional career in the San Francisco Bay Area (Pillsbury Winston Shaw Pittman) representing clients in their international operations and working to establish a Silicon Valley branch where he specialized in technology licensing. From a partnership in that firm, in 1990 he entered academia. He has since been involved in a wide range of activities to promote the development of new technologies and technology licensing, particularly for the health sector. At the request of the WIPO Global Challenges Division, he recently authored an in-depth study of the role played by intellectual property and technology transfer in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. He was on the founding intellectual property advisory groups for the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and the Foundation for New Innovative Diagnostics (FIND). He has worked on various projects for the WHO directed toward improving pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Prof. Abbott is active in research and teaching in the field of international trade, including as author of books addressing the NAFTA (now USMCA), as well as China’s role in the international trading system. He continues these activities as trade relations evolve, and as security and strategic interests have become more important in defining trade relations.

Prof. Abbott is the author and editor of numerous publications. Books include F. Abbott, et al. International Intellectual Property in an Integrated World Economy (5th ed. 2024)(Aspen), Emerging Markets and the World Patent Order (ed. with C. Correa and P. Drahos) (Elgar 2013), Global Pharmaceutical Policy (with Graham Dukes)(Elgar 2009), The International Intellectual Property System (with T. Cottier & F. Gurry)(1999)(Kluwer), China in the World Trading System (ed. 1998)(Kluwer), Public Policy and Global Technological Integration (ed. with D. Gerber) (1997)(Kluwer), Resource Book on TRIPS and Development (principal consultant with C. Correa (1995))(UNCTAD-ICTSD) and Law and Policy of Regional Integration (1995)(Martinus Nijhoff). His book co-edited with Stefan Riesenfeld, Parliamentary Participation in the Making and Operation of Treaties (1994), was awarded the 1995 American Society of International Law Certificate of Merit for Technical Craftsmanship.

Prof. Abbott has served as Visiting Professor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, as Jean Monnet Professor at the University of Bonn, as Visiting Professor and Weickart Fellow at the University of Bern, as Visiting Professor at University of California College of Law, San Francisco and at Vanderbilt Law School. He was a Professor at Chicago-Kent College of Law.

Professor Abbott has taught on the faculty of the World Trade Institute in Bern and in the Executive Course program of the Graduate Institute | Geneva.