McDermott Partner, Jeffrey C. Bates, Advising UN Secretary-General’s Special Adviser on Cyprus
Jeffrey Bates Also Named to ASIL Executive Council and Fletcher School’s LLM Advisory Council
BOSTON (March 10, 2010) — Jeffrey C. Bates, an international partner in the Boston office of global law firm McDermott Will & Emery LLP, is advising UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Special Adviser, Alexander Downer, former Foreign Minister of Australia, on the difficult property issues in the long-standing Cyprus dispute. The current negotiations have become intensified in the last few months, with the Secretary-General having gone to Cyprus in February.
Additionally, Mr. Bates has been nominated to the Executive Council of The American Society of International Law (ASIL). ASIL was founded in 1906, and three of its first four presidents were Elihu Root, Charles Evans Hughes and Cordell Hull. It is chartered by the U.S. Congress and holds Category II Consultative Status to the United Nation’s Economic and Social Council. Mr. Bates’ nomination was approved unanimously by the organization’s current Executive Council. On March 25, 2010, he and his fellow nominees will be presented for confirmation by the full membership of the Society at ASIL’s Annual General Meeting to be held in Washington, D.C., after which he will begin his three-year term on the Council.
Mr. Bates has also just been named to a three-year term on the LLM Advisory Council of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. The appointment was made by Stephen W. Bosworth, Dean of the Fletcher School, a former U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Korea and recent Envoy to North Korea for President Barack H. Obama.
Mr. Bates has practiced in the fields of international and environmental law, regulation and policy for more than 30 years. He has represented corporations, governments, non-governmental organizations and individuals in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Pacific Rim, involving matters throughout the United States and in more than 50 other countries. He has served as a moderator, speaker and faculty member at conferences and symposia in the Czech Republic, the Peoples Republic of China, Canada, Brazil, the United Kingdom and the United States. He has also served as a lecturer at Harvard University and the MIT Sloan School, and for the Organization of American States (OAS) course on international law, and has moderated and spoken at symposia and panels in conjunction with the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, the American Society of International Law and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. He represents clients in high-profile, complex international litigation in courts and tribunals across the globe.
In addition to his most recent appointments to the Executive Council of ASIL and the LLM Advisory Council of the Fletcher School, Mr. Bates serves on the Advisory Council to a Rome-based, non-profit consultancy on corporate social responsibility and ethics, Fidelis International Institute for Business Ethics. His fellow council members for this organization include senior executives of multi-national financial corporations.
The American Society of International Law is a 4,000-member, nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization founded in 1906. ASIL’s mission is to foster the study of international law and to promote the establishment and maintenance of international relations on the basis of law and justice. The Society’s members are drawn from nearly 100 nations and include attorneys, academics, corporate counsel, judges, representatives of government and nongovernmental associations, international civil servants, students and others interested in international law. Through its meetings, publications, information services and outreach programs, ASIL advances international law scholarship and education for international law professionals as well as for broader policy-making audiences and the public.
Since 1933, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy has prepared the world's leaders to become innovative problem-solvers in government, business and non-governmental organizations with strategic cross-sector networks. Through their ongoing commitment and rigorous approach to advancing world knowledge through research and scholarship, the Fletcher School, its faculty and its students from more than 70 countries continue to inform and build bridges to meaningful global solutions. The Fletcher School was the first of its peer institutions to launch a Master of Laws in International Law (LL.M.) degree program.
McDermott Will & Emery is a premier international law firm with a diversified business practice. Numbering more than 1,000 lawyers, we have offices in Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Düsseldorf, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Miami, Milan, Munich, New York, Orange County, Rome, San Diego, Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. Extending our reach to Asia, we have a strategic alliance with MWE China Law Offices in Shanghai.
