Craig Atkinson

Craig Atkinson is the Founder/Director of Lexmerca International Trade and a Trade Development Specialist with the International Trade Centre (ITC), the joint agency of the United Nations (UN) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Before joining the UN in 2012, Craig began his career in commercial diplomacy with two national government agencies (the Australian Trade Commission and the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service). He has also served as a consultant for the Commonwealth and in the private sector (banking, finance, and software).

In advancing the Internet and Computational Law for digital trade, Craig participates in the World Economic Forum (WEF) TradeTech community and projects under multiple international organizations, academic institutions, technology foundations, and standards bodies. He has further contributed to publications of the Commonwealth, Hinrich Foundation, ITC, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Routledge, Stanford University/the University of Vienna, the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), WEF, WTO, and Xalgorithms Foundation.

Emphasizing international economic law, Craig holds multidisciplinary graduate degrees and has studied in Canada (Bishop’s University; University of Saskatchewan), the Netherlands (Amsterdam School of International Business), and the United Kingdom (London School of Economics and Political Science). Additionally, he has held academic positions in Asia, Europe, and North America. From 2017 to 2019, Craig was a Visiting Research Fellow with the World Trade Institute (WTI) and, from 2020 to 2022, he was a Fellow with the Stanford Law School-University of Vienna School of Law Transatlantic Technology Law Forum. Most recently, in 2023, he was a Visiting Scholar at the Singapore Management University (SMU) Yong Pung How School of Law.

At present, Craig is a Non-Resident Fellow with the WTI and a Research Affiliate with the SMU Centre for AI and Data Governance/Centre for Computational Law.