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Thomas Bollyky

Senior Fellow for Global Health, Economics, and Development

Expertise

International law and regulatory policy, noncommunicable diseases and tobacco control, technological innovation and delivery, international trade and investment, and intellectual property.

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, and a health policy analyst through the Outstanding Scholar Program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Mr. Bollyky 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, Science, Foreign Affairs, Journal of the American Medical Association, the Atlantic, and the Stanford Journal for Law, Science & Policy. Mr. Bollyky has been asked to serve in a variety of capacities at the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine (IOM), including as co-chair of the IOM workshop on international regulatory harmonization amid globalization and as a member of the IOM committee for strengthening food and drug regulation in developing countries. He is a member of the advisory committee for the Clinton Global Initiative and has served as a temporary legal adviser to the World Health Organization. In 2013, the World Economic Forum honored Mr. Bollyky as a Young Global Leader.

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 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.