Ricardo MELÉNDEZ-ORTIZ is ICTSD’s co-founder and its Chief Executive Officer since 1996. Previously, he co-founded and was General Director of Fundación Futuro Latinoamericano (Quito). He has represented Colombia as a negotiator in several multilateral fora, including as permanent delegate of Colombia in Geneva and as a negotiator in GATT’s Uruguay Round, the Rio’92 UN Conference process, UNCTAD VIII, the Climate Change Convention, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Montreal Protocol. He acted as spokesperson for the G77 in several fora and served as chair of the UN Standing Committees on Commodities and on Trade Preferences. Earlier, he had served as Principal Adviser 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 edited, authored and published a wide range of books, articles and opinion pieces in English, French and Spanish on economic governance, trade, sustainable development and conflict management. He has served or currently sits on advisory committees and the boards of a number of global policy initiatives, including as Member of the Board of Intellectual Property Watch (Geneva); the Operating Board of AccountAbility (London); the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on Trade and WEF’s Working Group on Trade and Climate Change; The Pardee Center Task Force on Governance for a Green Economy (U of Boston); The Center for Global Development’s Global Trade Preference Working Group (Washington, DC); The Evian’s Group Brains Trust (IMD); the Global Governance Network of Globus et Locus (Milano); the Steering Committees of DfID’s Global Trade and Finance Architecture Initiative and of UN DESA’s Sustainable Development Knowledge Partnership (New York), a Patron of the Earth Focus Foundation (Geneva); in the recent past he served as Chair of the Global Action Network’s Council (Cambridge, MA); and member of the U.N. Secretary General Millennium Project Task Force on Trade; the WTO’s Director General NGO Advisory Group; and the MOFCOM/IISD China Sustainable Development and Global Markets Task Force. Mr. Meléndez-Ortiz, a graduate of Harvard University, has recently co-authored Envisioning a Sustainable Development Agenda for Trade and Environment (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) with A. Najam and M. Halle, and co-edited Rebuilding Global Trade: Proposals for A Fairer, More Sustainable Future (Global Economic Governance Programme at Oxford U. and ICTSD, 2009) with C. Deere; Agricultural Subsidies In The WTO Green Box: Ensuring Coherence With Sustainable Development Goals (Cambridge University Press, 2009) with C. Bellmann and J. Hepburn; Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development, Agendas in a Changing World (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2009) with P. Roffe; and, WTO Dispute Settlement: The Developing CountryExperience (Cambridge U. Press, forthcoming November 2010) with G. Shaffer. He holds Colombian and Belgian nationalities and is a resident of Switzerland where he lives with his wife and two daughters.
Authored and Co-authored Publications and Public Presentations
- Books
Chapters in books, Articles, Working Papers and contributions
Collective Reports
Presentations
WTO Dispute Settlement: The Developing Country Experience. Shaffer, Gregory and Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz (eds). 2010.
Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development, Agendas in a Changing World. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo and Pedro Roffe (eds). 2009.
Agricultural Subsidies in the WTO Green Box: Ensuring Coherence with Sustainable Development Goals. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo, Christophe Bellmann and Jonathan Hepburn (eds). 2009.
Rebuilding Global Trade: Proposals for a Fairer, More Sustainable Future. Deere-Birkbeck, Carolyn and Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz (eds). 2009.
Envisioning a Sustainable Development Agenda for Trade and Environment. Najam, Adil, Mark Halle and Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz. 2007.
Trade and Environment : A Resource Book. Najam, Adil, Mark Halle and Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz. 2007.
Trading in Genes: Development Perspectives on Biotechnology, Trade and Sustainability. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo and Vicente Sanchez (eds). 2005.
Trading in Knowledge: Development Perspectives on TRIPS, Trade and Sustainability. Bellmann, Christophe; Dutfield, Graham and Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo (eds). 2003.
Trade, Environment and Investment, Cancun and Beyond. Policy Matters. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo (Guest Editor). 2003
Commerce international et développement durable: Voix africaines et plurielles. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo and Christophe Bellmann (eds). 2002.
Trade, Environment and Sustainable Development: Views From Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America: A Reader. Koenz, Peider, Christophe Bellmann, Lucas Assuncao and Ricardo Meléndez-Ortiz (eds). 2000.
‘Governance of International Trade for the Green Economy‘. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2011.
‘What Europe Could do to Save the Doha Round’. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo and Trineesh Biswas. 2011.
‘A Sustainable Development Perspective On Global Trade Governance’. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo and Trineesh Biswas. 2011.
‘At Cancún and Elephant Fills the Room and yet Remains Ellusive’. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 12 December 2010.
‘Trade And Sustainable Development: The Ends Must Shape The Means’. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2010.
‘Anticipating Pressing Issues in Integration: The Trade, Climate and Sustainable Development Nexus‘ Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo, Trineesh Biswas and Ingrid Jegou. 2010.
‘Selected Issues for LDCs in Current Trade and Climate Change Talks‘. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2008.
‘Trade and Equity in a World Where Goods Carry Carbon Passports‘. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2008.
‘Sustainability in Trade’. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2008.
‘The Trade Round Of Unbelievers’. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2006.
‘What Matters to Europe Matters to the World’. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2006.
‘Finalising Modalities In NAMA And Agriculture By End April 2006, What Is And What Should Be Possible?’. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2005.
‘Preface - Trade and Development Law‘. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2005.
‘Trade, Europe And A Livable World‘. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2005.
‘L’agenda incertain‘. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2005.
‘Environment At Cancún: Issues In The Current Trade Round‘. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2003.
‘Sustainable Development: Filling the Governance Gap for Globalisation‘. Meléndez-Ortiz Ricardo, Bernice Wing Yee Lee, and Adil Najam. 2003.
‘Reflexiones y Sugerencias para el Debate Multilateral sobre Comercio y Ambiente. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo. 2000.
‘Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy Objectives’. Meléndez-Ortiz, Ricardo and Ali Delhavi. 2000.
Agriculture and Climate Change: A Scoping Report. 2011.
From Collision to Vision: Climate Change and World Trade. 2010.
Trade for Development (UN Millennium Task Force on Trade). 2005.
Reference Manual for the Integrated Assessment of Trade-Related Policies. 2001.
- EU trade policy and sustainable development.
- Crafting Policy In a Context of Scientific Inconclusiveness and Uncertainty.
- European Commission DG Trade: TRIPS - Ten Years Later.
- Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer for the Local Production of Pharmaceuticals in the Developing World: What we Know and Don’t Know.