Kazuhito Yamashita is the Research Director of the Canon Institute for Global Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry. He joined the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) in 1977, and subsequently held positions including as Director, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) Affairs Division; Counselor, Japanese Mission to European Union in Brussels; and Deputy-Director General, Rural Development Bureau. He retired from MAFF in 2008.
He received his Ph.D. in Agriculture from the University of Tokyo. He has published 17 books in Japanese as the sole author and numerous articles in Japanese newspapers and economic magazines. His publications include The Political Economy of Japanese Agricultural Trade Negotiations in The Political Economy of Japanese Trade Policy; Series: The TPP and Agricultural Revitalization, IIST e-Magazine; Agricultural trade policy reform in Japan: options for achieving change in Agricultural Subsidies in the WTO Green Box; Food and Agriculture Problems for Japan and the World in the Twenty-first Century, in Asia-Pacific Review; The Environment and Trade-Legal and Economic Analysis of WTO and Multilateral Environment Agreements; and Food Safety and International Trade-Legal and Economic Analysis of the WTO’s SPS Agreement.
