Dr. Shakeel Bhatti is the first Secretary of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) at the FAO. Since he took office in 2007, Dr Bhatti managed the launch of the Multilateral System of Access and Benefit-sharing, a global genepool which now contains more than 1.5 million samples of plant genetic material and facilitates more than 600 transfers of genetic material every day from international genebanks alone.

Shakeel Bhatti also launched the Benefit-sharing Fund of the International Treaty and led the development of a Strategic Plan for 116 million USD to capitalize the Fund. Before establishing the Treaty Secretariat, Shakeel Bhatti was the Head of the ‘Genetic Resources, Biotechnology and Associated Traditional Knowledge Section’ at the United Nations' World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

He was responsible for WIPO's work on intellectual property law in relation to genetic resources, biodiversity, traditional knowledge and biotechnology. Before joining WIPO, Dr. Bhatti worked on his doctorate at Duke University, USA, regarding the scope of patentable subject matter under Article 27 of the TRIPS Agreement in relation to genetic resources and biotechnological inventions.

Shakeel Bhatti has taught international patent law and genetic resource policy at several universities in India, Japan and Sweden. His articles appear in several journals and books, such as the Handbook on Plant Biotechnology, published by Wiley and Sons. His most recent book, Contracting for ABS: Legal and Scientific Implications of Bioprospecting Contracts, was published in 2009 by IUCN with Santiago Carrizosa, Patrick McGuire and Tomme Young.