It is with great pride that the Faculty of Law at the University of Pretoria announces that one of its extraordinary lecturers in the Department of Mercantile Law and a specialist in International Trade Law issues,  Dr Gustav Brink, has been elected as a Who's Who Legal's (WWL) ‘Thought Leader’ in the ‘Trade and Customs Law’ component. 

Although Who's Who Legal has included more than 600 people in the regular WWL list, only 27 persons have been identified worldwide as "Thought Leaders" in Trade and Customs Law.  Dr Brink is the only Thought Leader from Africa. If all 34 fields are taken into account, only 11 South Africans (and in total less than 20 of the whole of Africa) are identified as Thought Leaders. The WWL is compiled on the basis of nominations by peers, in other words one cannot gain access in any other way. Thought Leaders are chosen by the people listed in WWL as being the top experts in their respective fields and professions.

Simultaneously Prof Brink has been appointed as a judge (panel member) on a World Trade Organization (WTO) panel, concerning the dispute between Canada and the USA (US - Softwood Lumber VII).  This is the fifth dispute that Prof Brink is serving as a panelist, which makes him one of just a handful of people in the world who have been involved in five issues in any field.  He is currently also serving on the Morocco Hot-Rolled Steel panel.

Dr Gustav Brink is a specialist in international trade law issues, with particular emphasis on trade remedies and WTO dispute settlement. He is also a lecturer in international trade law at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, where he is also supervisor for a number of LLD students, and a research associate of the Trade Law Centre of Southern Africa. He has been involved in more than 200 anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguard investigations and reviews relating to various jurisdictions, including Argentina, Canada, the European Union, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan and South Africa. He holds an LLD (doctorate in law), based on a comparison of the anti-dumping systems of the WTO, the EC, the US and South Africa and has published widely on trade remedies, including the only textbook on the South Africa anti-dumping and countervailing system. Over the past 10 years he has drafted legislation on, and given training for governments in, trade remedies in countries as diverse as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Mauritius, Pakistan, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, Vanuatu and Zambia.