Bart van Vooren

Background

About Bart van Vooren

Quotes from EU life sciences clients (Chambers 2024):"[Bart] goes above and beyond to research the topics in question thoroughly and at the end comes up with sound advice and reasonable options for our business with pros and cons.""Bart is a very knowledgeable, action-focused and service-focused I am an attorney with a practice focusing on (1) life sciences regulatory (pharmaceuticals and food) and (2) biodiversity with a focus on access and benefit sharing. Over more than a decade, I built up a global practice on compliance with Access and Benefit-Sharing (ABS) laws under the Biodiversity Convention and its Nagoya Protocol. ABS compliance is critical when sourcing biological materials for life sciences R&D. Given my unique expertise in this field, I work with most of the largest global innovative pharma and food companies on the whole range of e.g. transactional, contractual, compliance, IP,(EU) regulatory and litigation work relating to ABS. By now, I have accumulated knowledge on all of the 100+ ABS laws globally. Over the years, my knowledge of ABS has also brought me to global public health, where access to pathogens and benefit sharing (e.g. equity in availability of vaccines) has become a major flashpoint with the PIP Framework and now the negotiations on a new ABS system under the WHO pandemic treaty. Before I became a practicing attorney in 2013, I was a full-time academic for 8 years. From 2010, I was adjunct professor of EU and international law at the University of Copenhagen. Before that, I obtained my PhD in this field from the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. I published in leading journals and wrote three books. My academic swan song was "EU External Relations Law", published in 2014 with Cambridge University Press. Finally, over the years, I have represented individuals and NGOs on human rights of refugees, persons with a disability, and LGBTQ+ persons, including through strategic litigation before the EU Court of Justice.