Smith, Fiona

Senior Lecturer in Law, University College London, UK; Co-Director of the WTO Scholar’s Forum

Fiona joined UCL in August 2005 after holding posts at the University of Sheffield and the University of Leicester. Her research interests focus on international agricultural trade law under the GATT and WTO and the philosophical underpinnings of the WTO regime. She has written widely on the subject of international agricultural trade, particularly food security, multifunctionality and the role of non-trade concerns and has spoken about her research both here in the UK and abroad. She is a member of the editorial board of the journal Jurisprudence, published by Hart. In July 2011 she co-convened the Current Legal Issues inter-disciplinary colloquia on Law and Language with Professor Michael Freeman.

Fiona is currently working on a two year project on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Governance and Food Security in Africa funded by the Swiss National Fund, with Dr Christian Häberli and Professor Christine Kauffman, World Trade Institute, Switzerland.

Fiona is the Founding and now Co-Director with Dr Isabelle Van Damme, of the WTO Scholars’ Forum, an initiative designed to bring together experts on the law of the World Trade Organization to discuss topical issues. The Forum has an annual seminar programme and is in addition currently working with the World Trade Law Association, to bring together practitioners in London and Geneva with interests in WTO law and policy.

Research
Fiona is interested in the law of the World Trade Organization, particularly international agricultural trade; how jurisprudential thought, particularly semantics, enables a scholar to gain greater insights into regulatory difficulties at international level and how those problems might be resolved.

Recent Publications (current and forthcoming)

Books:

Chapters in Books

  • “Food Security and International Agricultural Trade Regulation: Old Problems, New Perspectives” in JA McMahon & M Desta (eds), Handbook on International Agricultural Trade Regulation, (2012) Edward Elgar (in press) Chapter 2, 31-49.

Articles:

  • “Understanding Agriculture and the Environment” (2012) International Journal of Law in Context (accepted)
  • “Indigenous Farmers’ Rights, International Agricultural Trade and the WTO” (2011) (2) Journal of Human Rights and the Environment 157-177.
  • “Regulating Agriculture in the WTO” (2011) 7 International Journal of Law in Context 233-247.
  • “Law, Language and International Agricultural Trade Regulation” (2010) 63 Current Legal Problems 448-474.
  • “The Limitations of a Legal Approach to the Regulation of Cultural Diversity in the WTO: the problem of international agricultural trade” (2008) 3(1) Asian Journal of the WTO & International Health Law and Policy 51-80.

Conference Papers:

  • “Prospects for the Conclusion of the Doha Round in International Agricultural Trade: The Impact of the Financial Crisis” 11th Annual Conference on International Economic Law, British Institute of International Comparative Law, London UK, in association with Institute of International Economic Law, Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA, May 2011.
  • “Understanding the Nature of WTO Obligations: a Law & Language Approach” Centre for Law, Ethics and Globalization, University of Southampton, February 2011.
  • “Treaty Interpretation in the WTO: Beyond the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties” Public International Law Discussion Group, University of Oxford, November 2010.
  • “Language and International Agricultural Trade: a new methodological approach” February 2010, seminar series, Chicago-Kent Law School, Chicago, USA.
  • “Law, Language and International Agricultural Trade” November 2009 Current Legal Problems, chaired by Lord Steyn.