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.

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.

Before joining the MNE, he was an associate lawyer at PLMJ (Lisbon, Portugal), where he worked as a lawyer in several international and national arbitrations. Prior to that, he was an assistant legal advisor at the Permanent Court of Arbitration (The Hague, Netherlands), where he worked with international arbitration tribunals on investor-state disputes and disputes relating to intergovernmental organizations and international trade, including foreign investment, maritime and land borders, natural resources , infrastructures and labor controversies.

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.