3 Oct 2023


WTI's Director of Studies visits Uzbekistan

In the framework of the accession of Uzbekistan to the WTO, Prof Van den Bossche has been invited to a number of events in Tashkent. Here is a brief report and a few photos.

On 28 September 2023, Prof. Peter Van den Bossche, the WTI Director of Studies participated in a regional conference organized by USAID on The World of Trade: Trends and Dynamics.

Other participants in this conference in Tashkent, Uzbekistan inckuded Mr. Jamshid Khodjaev, Deputy Prime Minister of Uzbekistan; Mr. Xiangchen Zhang, Deputy Director General of the WTO, Ms. Charlotte Adriaen, Ambassador of the European Union to Uzbekistan; and Mr. David Hoffman, USAID Uzbekistan Mission Director.

Van den Bossche moderated a panel on the challenges of WTO accession and post-accession for acceding countries, in which Mr. Azizbek Urunov, the Chief Negotiator for Uzbekistan’s accession to the WTO as well as with senior trade officials from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan participated.

On 29 September 2023, Van den Bossche gave a lecture on international trade dispute resolution at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy (UWED) in Tashkent, and met with the Vice Rector, Prof. Odil Yusufjonov, staff and students of UWED, where his former WTI Ph.D. student, Dr. Umid Yakubkhodjaev, is now Dean of the Faculty of International Law.

On 29 September, Van den Bossche also met with Mr. Jonathan Henick, Ambassador of the United States to Uzbekistan and participated in other activities and a media event related to the accession of Uzbekistan to the WTO.

During his visit to Uzbekistan, Van den Bossche had the pleasure of meeting Ms. Aray Kassabekova, an alumna of the WTI MILE programme, and Ms. Umida Haqnazar, a non-resident Ph.D. student at the WTI.