Paolo R. Vergano is a founding partner at FratiniVergano – European Lawyers in Brussels, Belgium and Singapore (www.fratinivergano.eu) and key expert for trade facilitation in the ARISE Plus project of ASEAN Regional Integration Support by the EU. His practice focuses on international trade law (i.e., WTO, EU and ASEAN law, market access, trade facilitation, dispute settlement and trade negotiation in the areas of agriculture, services and non-tariff measures, such as sanitary and phytosanitary measures and technical barriers to trade). He has been advising the ASEAN Secretariat, ASEAN Member States and businesses operating in ASEAN on issues of international trade law and regional economic integration since 2007. Most recently, he has been involved in the establishment and operationalization of the ASEAN Trade Repository (ATR) and of the system of ASEAN Solutions to Services, Investment and Trade (ASSIST), two important trade facilitation instruments, developed with support by the European Union through the ARISE and ARISE Plus programmes, that aim at enabling the private sector to achieve increased regulatory transparency and address trade irritants within ASEAN, particularly with respect to Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs) and Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs). Mr. Vergano is a graduate of the Faculty of Law of the University of Torino, Italy (1995), received a Diplôme Supérieur de Droit Comparé at the Faculté Internationale de Droit Comparé in Strasbourg, France (1996) and holds a Master’s degree in International Business and Trade Law from the University of Fordham School of Law in New York, United States (1997). He teaches at the World Trade Institute in Bern, Switzerland since 2002, as well as at UPH in Jakarta and LUISS University in Rome. He is a frequent lecturer in universities around the world and author on issues of WTO, EU and ASEAN law.