As the Phase III Chair-Holder of the WTO Chair Programme (“WCP”), the Asian Center for WTO & International Health Law and Policy (“ACWH”) of National Taiwan University (“NTU”) held the first Asian regional WCP meeting at NTU on 17 September 2023, leading to rich and fruitful discussions.

On 17 September 2023, NTU’s Chair-Holder invited Chair-Holders from India, Indonesia, Jordan, Nepal, and Vietnam to hold the WCP’s first Asian regional meeting at NTU, joined by scholars from Australia, India, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The meeting was chaired by Andreas Sennekamp, WCP’s Section Chief, joined remotely by Dr. Werner Zdouc, the Director of WTO’s Knowledge and Information Management, Academic Outreach, and WCP Division.

In the meeting, each Chair-Holder and scholar shared their recent research and activity focuses, existing regional collaborative network, and ideas for future collaboration among Asian regional WCP Chair-Holders. All participating Chair-Holders agreed to build a robust mechanism to ensure more regular meetings and collaboration between Asian Chair-Holders and foster more regional outputs in the future.

This is the first regional WCP meeting in Asia, which marks a crucial step for the WCP to deepen the regional collaborative network in this region. It is anticipated that, through these efforts, the collaboration between Asian WCP Chair-Holders will develop more productive and constructive outputs.