Peter van Dijk

Petrus (Peter) van Dijk is a lawyer specialized in European Law, International Law, Human Rights, Trade Policy and International Relations.

In his work, Peter focused on supporting policies to build inclusive, sustainable economies, especially in agriculture and the financial sector in order to promote equal cooperation in these sectors between the European Union and countries as well as regions in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Peter worked in local processes in many African and Asian countries for central banks, ministries, private businesses, as well as for international organisations such as the EU, IMF, the World Bank and UNO. He lived for about nine years in Indonesia, working with the World Bank on evaluating the Financial Sector Development policy and, upon Greenpeace’s advice, with one of the world’s largest and diverse (Indonesian) business groups, working especially on sustainability values in its plantation companies. The last five years Peter was responsible for agriculture in the Trade Policy department of the Netherlands Foreign Affairs ministry. Geographically, he was responsible for cooperation agreements with Latin America. Technically, Peter was involved in interdepartmental coordination and government relations on Agriculture, (social and environmental) Sustainability, Food Security, Food Safety and Trade. He participated in the SPS (sanitary and phytosanitary) committee of the World Trade Organisation. In the WTO, Peter managed the Netherlands support to the (food) Standards and Trade Development Facility, STDF. And Peter organised studies on the impact of Agrifood trade on trade relationships, especially on the effects for local farmers and market development.

Finally, Peter worked for international organizations and universities as a trainer and published articles on the abovementioned topics. He lives near Den Haag, the Netherlands, in a village next to the North Sea.

Peter would like to use his knowledge and network in ASEANcham-EU to contribute to building a strategic, stable, sustainable partnership between South-East Asia and Europe.