Profile

Debra Steger is Professor and Co-Chair of the International Law Group at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law. She teaches and carries out research in the fields of international trade, investment and international dispute settlement / arbitration.

Professor Steger was the first Director of the Appellate Body Secretariat of the World Trade Organization. During the Uruguay Round, she was the Senior Negotiator on Dispute Settlement and the Establishment of the World Trade Organization as well as the principal legal counsel for the Government of Canada. She has served as General Counsel of the Canadian International Trade Tribunal, and practised international trade, investment and competition law with major law firms in Canada.

She has been appointed to dispute settlement rosters, has chaired a WTO dispute settlement panel, has acted as counsel to governments in several WTO disputes, and has provided technical assistance and training to developing country Members of the WTO. She serves on several editorial, academic, and other advisory committees.

She has an LL.M. from the University of Michigan, an LL.B. from the University of Victoria, and an honours B.A. from the University of British Columbia. She has published 11 books and 125 articles, book chapters and reports on international trade, investment and dispute settlement/arbitration. Her edited five volume collection, The World Trade Organization: Critical Perspectives on the World Economy, of selected "great works" on the WTO was published by Routledge in June 2014.