Clients benefit from Valerie Hughes’ unrivalled experience in international trade law. She has served as counsel for the Government of Canada before WTO panels and the group’s Appellate Body, as an adjudicator in WTO disputes, and as the only person to have served as both Director of the WTO’s Legal Affairs Division (2010–16) and Director of its Appellate Body Secretariat (2001–05). Valerie is a member of the pool of arbitrators for the WTO Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arrangement, has been named to the Roster of Panel Chairs for the CPTPP and is also a member of the Roster of Panelists under Article 31 of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA) as well as the binational panel roster under Chapter 10 of the CUSMA. Valerie served in senior counsel and leadership positions in her 22 years with the Government of Canada. She was most recently Assistant Deputy Minister and Counsel to the Department of Finance. Valerie is also one of Canada’s leading experts in international treaty law. She argued Canada’s first investor-state dispute under the NAFTA and has represented Canada before the International Court of Justice and other ad hoc international tribunals.