Dr. jur. Makane Moïse Mbengue, a native of Senegal, is presently a Fellow in the Global Visitors Program of the New York University Law School, from Sept. 2007 to June 2008. In 1997, he received his LL.B. from the University Gaston Berger of Saint-Louis (Senegal) in Public Law, in 1998 a Masters degree, followed in 1999 by an LL.M. in Business and Economic Law.  2001-2007 he was a Teaching Assistant and Researcher at the Law Faculty of the University of Geneva. His doctoral research was devoted to the topic of "Anticipation in International Law: A Legal Theory on the Regulation of Environmental and Sanitary Risk". The thesis explores new avenues such as e.g. the distinction between scientific uncertainty and the insufficiency of scientific evidence. Dr. Mbengue is also the author of a number of articles in scientific journals and books on trade and environment, on international dispute-settlement, on the law of treaties, on the law of international watercourses and on WTO law. He has been a consultant for the World Bank, the World Health Organization, the Nile Basin Initiative and the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health.

Ms. Maria Julia Oliva is Senior Programme Officer for Trade, Environment and Natural Resources at the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD).  Previously, Ms. Oliva was a researcher at the Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva, where she is also pursuing a PhD.  Ms. Oliva also worked as a legal consultant for the UNCTAD BioTrade Facilitation Programme and served as the Director of the Intellectual Property and Sustainable Development Project at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL). She sits on the Board of Directors of IP-Watch and is a member of the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law.  Ms. Oliva earned an LLM Degree in Environmental Law from Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College and a law degree at the University of Mendoza in Argentina.

Urs P. Thomas, PhD is a research associate at the Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva. Born in Zürich, he spent over twenty years in Montréal. After fifteen years in international business, he went back to school and obtained a BSc in Environmental Biology and an MBA at Concordia University. Subsequently he obtained a PhD in Political Science at UQAM with a thesis on UNEP, focused on its interorganizational relations. Ever since he got involved in this research he worked in international environmental affairs and in their relationship with economic globalization.  This work has subsequently been focused on trade & environment studies since 2000 at the University of Geneva's Law Faculty. Urs P. Thomas is also the Publisher of EcoLomics International.