Michael Hahn advises companies and government agencies on all matters relating to WTO and regional free trade law. He accompanies private clients seeking diplomatic protection by the home state in response to foreign state claims under trade agreements, advises on investment disputes and accompanies in legislative procedures. Sovereign clients are provided with risk analyses regarding the compatibility of planned measures with international trade law obligations. Michael also advises on all matters relating to European state aid law, particularly with regard to third-country subsidies and other trade defence instruments.
Michael Hahn is a German lawyer (Ass. iur.), has been a professor in Switzerland since 2008 (2008-2015, University of Lausanne, Chair of European law) and has been Director of the Institute for European and International Economic Law at the University of Bern and the World Trade Institute since 2015. He is an honorary professor at Waikato University (Hamilton, New Zealand); adjunct professor at Murdoch University (Perth, Australia) and permanent guest lecturer at the Europa Institute of Saarland University.
Trade Compliance
Trade Defence Instruments
WTO law
German
English
French
Listed as an arbitrator for numerous trade agreements (including WTO, CETA, CPTPP, TCA, FTA MERCOSUR-SACU, FTA Perú-UK)
Lecturing activities on all continents
Current publications include:
The World Trade Organization — Law, Practice, and Policy [with Mitsuo Matsushita, Thomas Schoenbaum and Petros Mavroidis, OUP 4thedition 2026]
The Common Commercial Policy – 10 Years after Lisbon [edited with Guillaume van der Loo], Brill 2021
Economic Integration: Legal Issues, Concepts and Typology, in Julien Chaise and Christoph Herrmann (eds.), The International Law of Economic Integration (§6), Oxford University Press 2025
Art. 107 TFEU’s interstate commerce clause, in Bungenberg/Heinrichs, Kommentar zum Beihilfenrecht/Subsidy Law (in German), Nomos 2025
WTO Law on Subsidies, in Bungenberg/Heinrichs, Kommentar zum Beihilfenrecht/Subsidy Law (in German), Nomos 2025
Country Report: Switzerland, in Bungenberg/Heinrichs, Kommentar zum Beihilfenrecht/Subsidy Law (in German), Nomos 2025
Subsidy Disciplines affecting Trade between Switzerland and the European Union, in Bungenberg/Heinrichs, Kommentar zum Beihilfenrecht/Subsidy Law (in German), Nomos 2025
EU Enforcement Regulation: countermeasures filling the void? In Luca Rubini (ed.), Elgar Research Handbook on Unilateral Measures in Trade, Investment and Economic Law 2026
The role of the CJEU with regard to Switzerland and Swiss operators, in: Pierre Sauvé et al. (eds), Liber Amicorum Thomas Cottier, Brill 2025, p. 155-173
[with P. Reinhold] International Economic Relations as a Risk: The EU’s Economic Security Strategy and the World Trading System, Global Trade and Customs Journal, Volume 20, Issue 2 (2025), pp. 110-118
The Definion of Foreign Subsidy in the EU’s Foreign Subsidiy Regulation (Art. 3 FSR): in Bungenberg / Soltész, Foreign Subsidies Regulation – Article-by-Article Commentary, 2026, C.H.Beck, Hart Publishing, Oxford and Nomos Verlag [with H. Weiss]
