Chris Noonan (academic)
Chris Noonan is a New Zealand legal academic in trade, competition and company law at the University of Auckland. He was appointed the first Chief Trade Adviser to the Pacific Islands Forum in 2009, and resigned from that position in September 2011 and was succeeded by Edwini Kessie, a legal practitioner. He has a PhD and LLB from the University of Auckland. PACER Plus. Noonan was appointed Chief Trade Advisor in 2009 to give independent advice to the Pacific countries during their negotiations over the PACER Plus free trade agreement. The free trade agreement has been controversial  with Australia being accused of bullying the smaller Pacific nations. Funding for his office was provided by Australia and had led to battles to maintain both the office's independence and it ongoing funding. Noonan resigned for personal reasons in February 2012. University of Auckland. Noonan is currently Associate Professor and Associate Dean International in the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland. He is also an editor the "New Zealand Business Law Quarterly", a New Zealand business law journal. The journal is a joint venture between the Research Centre for Business Law at The University of Auckland and  Thomson Reuters NZ. It provides in depth analyses of business law issues for both a national and international legal audience. Trade issues. Noonan is consulted and cited by major New Zealand media outlets on various issues which have included the Fonterra potentially contaminated whey protein and free trade agreements. In May 2012 he was one of the signatories on an open letter to the negotiators of the Trans-Pacific Partnership urging the rejection of investor-state dispute settlement.