João Gil Antunes is a Portuguese qualified lawyer who also has experience as secretary to international arbitral tribunals. In both capacities, he has worked on several disputes involving sovereign states, intergovernmental organizations, and private parties. He is currently a legal adviser in the Legal Affairs Department of the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
In the first semester of 2021, he served as legal adviser in international law to the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the European Union, where he participated in the activities (formal and informal) of the Working Groups of COJUR-ICC and COJUR.
Before joining the MFA, he was an associate lawyer at PLMJ Law Firm (Lisbon, Portugal), where he acted as counsel in several international and domestic arbitrations. Prior to that, he was a law clerk at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (The Hague, Netherlands), where he assisted international arbitral tribunals in investor-state, intergovernmental and trade-related disputes, including investment, maritime and land borders, natural resources, infrastructure, and labor disputes.
He earned his bachelor and master’s degrees from NOVA School of Law (Lisbon, Portugal) and speaks or reads four languages at various levels of proficiency.
