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Thomas Bollyky

Senior Fellow for Global Health, Economics, and Development

Expertise

International law and regulatory policy, tobacco and non-communicable diseases, technological innovation and delivery, international trade and investment, intellectual property, clinical trials, import safety.

Programs

Global Health Program, Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies, Program on Science and Technology

Bio

Thomas J. Bollyky is senior fellow for global health, economics, and development at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is also an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University and consultant to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Prior to coming to CFR, Mr. Bollyky was a fellow at the Center for Global Development and director of intellectual property and pharmaceutical policy at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), where he led the negotiations for pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and medical technologies in the U.S.-Republic of Korea Free Trade Agreement and represented USTR in the negotiations with China on the safety of food and drug imports. He was also a Fulbright scholar to South Africa, where he worked as a staff attorney at the AIDS Law Project on treatment access issues related to HIV/AIDS, and an attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where he represented Mexico before the International Court of Justice in Avena and other Mexican Nationals (Mexico v. United States of America)and José Ernesto Medellín before the U.S. Supreme Court in Medellin v. Dretke. Mr. Bollyky is a former law clerk to Chief Judge Edward R. Korman, an international affairs fellow at CFR, an Eesti and Eurasian public service fellow at the Estonian Ministry of Education, and a health policy analyst through the Outstanding Scholar Program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

His research and writing focus on trade, legal, and regulatory issues in global health and development, in particular tobacco and non-communicable diseases, technological innovation and delivery, clinical trials, and import safety. He has testified before the U.S. Senate on international regulatory issues in global health, and his most recent work has appeared in The New York Times, Foreign Affairs, Journal of the American Medical Association, Foreign Policy, the Atlantic, and the Stanford Journal for Law, Science & Policy. He is a member of the Institute of Medicine's committee for strengthening food and drug regulation in developing countries and has served as a temporary legal adviser to the World Health Organization.

Mr. Bollyky received his BA in biology and history at Columbia University and his JD at Stanford Law School, where he was the president of the Stanford Law & Policy Review. He is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the New York and U.S. Supreme Court bars and the American Society of International Law.

Languages:

Hungarian (proficient)

Selected Publications:

"How to Fix the World Bank," The New York Times, April 8, 2012; U.S. Engagement in Global Tobacco Control: Proposals for Comprehensive Funding and Strategies, 304 JAMA 2637 (2010) (with Lawrence O. Gostin); "FDA's Role in Improving the Development Pathway for Neglected Disease Therapies," Testimony before the U.S. Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, the Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies, June 23, 2010; Global Health Interventions for U.S. Food and Drug Safety, Center for Strategic and International Studies (2009); Intellectual Property Rights and Climate Change: Principles for Innovation and Access to Low-Carbon Technology, Center for Global Development (2009); R if C > P + B: A Paradigm for Judicial Redress of Socioeconomic Rights Violations 18 SO. AFR. J. HUM. RTS. 161 (2002); Safer, Faster, Cheaper: Improving Clinical Trials and Regulatory Pathways to Fight Neglected Diseases, Center for Global Development.