Elisabeth Mae Bowes is an

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...

currently serving as the Deputy High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. From 2009-2012 Bowes was Counsellor to Australia’s Permanent Mission to the

World Trade Organization The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that g ...

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

. Then, from 2012-2016, she was head of the Australian " Tobacco Plain Packaging Taskforce", during which she led Australia’s defence at the

in dispute settlement proceedings regarding Australia's world first tobacco plain packaging legislation. From 2016-2019 she "oversaw bilateral trade relations between the US and Australia" while posted to the Australian Embassy in Washington DC, and from 2020 was the chief negotiator of the

Australia–United Kingdom Free Trade Agreement The Australia–United Kingdom free trade agreement (AUKFTA) was signed 17 December 2021. The broad terms of the agreement had been agreed six months earlier, following almost a year of negotiations. It was the first trade agreement signed by Br ...

. This was the UK's first trade agreement "negotiated from scratch" post-

Brexit Brexit (, a portmanteau of "Britain" and "Exit") was the Withdrawal from the European Union, withdrawal of the United Kingdom (UK) from the European Union (EU). Brexit officially took place at 23:00 GMT on 31 January 2020 (00:00 1 February ...

, and came into force in 2023. Bowes received Bachelor of Arts (

honours Honour (Commonwealth English) or honor (American English; see spelling differences) is a quality of a person that is of both social teaching and personal ethos, that manifests itself as a code of conduct, and has various elements such as valo ...

) and Bachelor of Laws (honours) degrees from the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

in 1993, and a Master of Philosophy in International Relations from the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

in 1997 with a theses entitled "Art of the state: plunder and restitution of cultural property". Prior to joining the

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is the department of the Australian government responsible for foreign policy and international relations, development aid (under the name Australian Aid), consular services, overseas trad ...

she had served at the

United Nations Compensation Commission The United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC) was created in 1991 as a subsidiary organ of the United Nations Security Council. Its mandate was to process claims and pay compensation for losses and damage suffered as a direct result of Iraq's 1 ...

in Geneva and a legal officer at the

International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) is an intergovernmental organization created by the mandate of the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea. It was established by the United Nations Convention on the Law ...

in Hamburg. Bowes was awarded the Public Service Medal in 2021 for her work in international trade policy, with particular with reference to taskforce:

References

External links

Biography
at the Australian

Biography
at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public university, public research university in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of George IV of the United Kingdom, King George IV ...

Alumni of the University of Oxford Australian women diplomats Living people Recipients of the Public Service Medal (Australia) University of Queensland alumni Year of birth missing (living people) 21st-century Australian public servants 21st-century Australian women public servants {{Australia-diplomat-stub