Antonio Herman Benjamin is a Justice and President of the Superior Tribunal de Justiça (STJ), the National High Court of Brazil. He was appointed to the court in 2006 by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

His academic credentials include a Master's degree from the University of Illinois College of Law and a Doctorate in Law from UFRGS in Porto Alegre. He has held positions as a Visiting Professor at the University of Texas School of Law and currently serves as a Professor at UNISANTA. As the founder and former Vice-President of IACL in Brussels, he has maintained a strong international presence in legal academia.

In the field of legal publications, Benjamin founded and directed the Consumer Law Review from 1997 to 2000 and established the Environmental Law Review. He also founded BRASILCON, the Brazilian Institute of Consumer Law and Policy, serving as its first President. His expertise in consumer protection is evidenced by his role as a member of the Commission of Jurists that drafted the Consumer Protection Code (1988-1990), and he currently presides over the Commission for its update.

Recognized as one of Brazil's leading authorities in Environmental, Civil Liability, and Consumer Law, Benjamin has also contributed significantly to judicial education as the Vice Director of the Sálvio de Figueiredo Teixeira National School for Training and Improvement of Judges.

His environmental leadership extends globally as president of the Brazilian Environmental Forum of Judges and director of the LLM Program on Justice at Brazil's National Judicial Academy (ENFAM). He serves as chair emeritus of the World Commission on Environmental Law (WCEL), president of the Global Judicial Institute on the Environment, and secretary-general of the International Advisory Council for Environmental Justice of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Additionally, he is a member of the UN Secretary-General Legal Expert Group on Crimes against the Environment and has served for a decade as Councilor of the Brazilian Environmental Council.

Thierry Bourgoignie is regular professor of law at UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal), in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He obtained a Ph.D. degree from the University of Louvain in Belgium and a LL.M. degree from the Yale Law School in the United States. After 25 years of academic career in Europe as full professor in Louvain and inviting professor in several European institutions, he joined UQAM in June 2003. He teaches European Law, Consumer Law, Critical Analysis of Private Law, and International and Comparative Consumer Law. For 6 years he acted as the director of a graduate programme in international relations and international law. Between 2009 and 2011, he was appointed Director of the Department of Law within the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences. His publication list comprises more than 20 individual and collective monographs and about 90 published papers. His main research focus has always been and still is consumer protection law and policy. He was elected Chairman of the International Association of Consumer Law from 1998 to 2003. He played a major role in the development of consumer action programmes and the adoption of consumer directives by the European Commission in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2004, he founded at UQAM the research group GREDICC (Groupe de recherche en droit international et comparé de la consummation – www.gredicc.uqam.ca), of which he is the acting director. GREDICC conducts research programmes relating to consumer subject matters, mainly with a comparative and international dimension. It also organizes Summer programmes in national, comparative and international consumer law. Professor Bourgoignie is also acting as a consultant in consumer affairs, product safety and market surveillance, by several international institutions and governments in Europe, South America, the Caribbean countries, the Gulf States and North Africa.

Professor Engel is a Research Professor of Law at Suffolk University and a national authority on mortgage finance and regulation, subprime and predatory lending, and housing discrimination. Her many publications include a 2011 book published by Oxford University Press, The Subprime Virus: Reckless Credit, Regulatory Failure and Next Steps (with Prof. P. McCoy) and articles in Texas Law Review, Fordham Law Review, Washington University Law Quarterly, Connecticut Law Review, The Journal of Economics and Business, Fordham Urban Law Journal, and Housing Policy Debate. Professor Engel presents her research in academic, banking, and policy forums throughout the country and around the world. Her analysis of financial services markets and the laws that regulate them regularly catches the attention of the press; The New York Times, Business Week, The Economist, Newsweek, and The Wall Street Journal have all cited her work. Professor Engel has advised numerous federal and state agencies on various matters related to financing of loans. Among her various public service activities, she has been an appointed member of the Consumer Advisory Board of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors’ Consumer Advisory Council.  She currently serves on the boards of Consumer Reports and the National Association of Consumer Advocates.

Geraint Howells is Dean of Law at City University Hong Kong. He was previously Dean at the University of Manchester and Head of the Law School at Lancaster. His work encompasses Product Liability and Safety, and other field such as sales of goods, unfair terms, consumer credit and trade practices. He has a particular interest in European consumer law. Geraint has lectured to academics and practitioners in most regions of the world and regularly acts as a consultant for NGOs, the DTI and the European Commission. He is a member of the Acquis Group that is commissioned to advise the EC on European Contract Law Harmonisation. He has held visiting positions held at Wurzburg, Munster, Paris XI, Tennessee and Sydney Universities. He is a past President of the International Association of Consumer Law.

Gail Pearson is Professor of Business Law at the University of Sydney where she Chairs the PHDASC and is Deputy Chair of the Graduate Studies Committee of Academic Board. She was Chair of the Discipline of Business Law. She is a Member of the Code Compliance Committee for Customer Owned Banks. Her books and articles are on financial services and credit and other aspects of commercial and consumer law. She has been a Member of the Fair Trading Tribunal of New South Wales, the consultative committee to the Consumer Trader and Tenancy Tribunal, and the Business Law Specialist Accreditation Committee of the Law Society of New South Wales. With others from the IACL she was a member of the International law Association Committee on the International Protection of Consumers. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Advance Studies at JNU and of the Australia India Institute. With Nicola Howell of QUT, she founded the Australasian Consumer Law Roundtable.

Professor Dr Rachagan holds a B.A. (Malaya), M.A (Otago), LL M (Bristol) and PhD (London). He is a Barrister-at-Law (Lincolns Inn) and Advocate and Solicitor of the High Court of Malaya. He was Professor and Dean of the Faculty of Law University of Malaya till 2000 when he became Consumers International’s Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific. In 2005 he returned to academia and became the Vice President (Academic Affairs), Nilai University. In 2013 he became the Vice Chancellor of Perdana University. He is a Commissioner of the Malaysia Competition Commission and Chairman of its Working Committee on Advocacy. He was elected President of the IACL in 2011.

Iain Ramsay is Professor of Law at the University of Kent. His primary areas of research are regulation of consumer markets and consumption relations at the national and international level and consumer bankruptcy. Professor Ramsay has written several books and articles on consumer law and bankruptcy including several empirical studies of consumer bankruptcy, consumer redress and small claims courts. He has acted as a consultant on consumer law and policy to governments and NGOs in Canada, Europe and South America. He was a member of the Canadian Federal Task Force on Personal Insolvency (2000-2002) and is an elected member of the American Law Institute.

Lawyer and Doctor in Legal and Social Sciences from the National University of La Plata, where he served as Full Professor of Civil Law-Obligations. Honorary Doctor from the National University of Córdoba (2014). Director of the Doctorate in Law program at the National University of Mar del Plata (2014). Collaborator on the drafting Commission of the National Civil and Commercial Code (2011). Member of the Executive Committee of the International Association of Consumer Law (London, 2006-2015). Author/co-author/director of books on Obligations, Contracts, Consumer Law, Civil Liability and Insurance, including *Tratado de derecho del consumidor* (Treatise on Consumer Law), 4 volumes (2015), *La defensa del consumidor en Argentina* (Consumer Protection in Argentina) (2012), *Contratos civiles y comerciales* (Civil and Commercial Contracts), Vol. II (2010-2015), *Contratos por adhesión* (Contracts of Adhesion) (2012), among others. Co-director of the journals *Derecho comercial y de las obligaciones* (Commercial Law and Obligations) (2015) and *Derecho comercial, del consumidor y de la empresa* (Commercial, Consumer and Business Law) (2010).

email: intassocconslaw@gmail.com.

Thomas Wilhelmsson was Rector and since 1982 Professor of Civil and Commercial Law at the University of Helsinki. Professor Wilhelmsson has published books and articles in thirteen languages in contract law, insurance law, consumer law, the law of partnerships, tort law, European Community law and legal theory. He has been chairing several law drafting committees, dealing with reforms of consumer law, contract law as well as partnership law. He is a member of the Commission on European Contract Law (the Lando-Commission) and the Acquis group.