NEW DELHI: India needs to enhance the pool of trade lawyers and legal experts to effectively handle the growing number of complex disputes at WTO, Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia said today.
All developing countries including India, she said, would face difficulties in contesting trade disputes at World Trade Organisation (WTO) because of paucity of lawyers and legal professionals to deal with such cases.
“That is something we need to develop in every developing country. The capacity in terms of international trade lawyers, legal experts,” she said.
“What is a bit of concern that as yet the number of law firms within India is very very limited who engage in the practice of trade law and I think what we would like to see is that this pool should grow, the number of experts should grow, because that is the only way in which we will deepen the pool and truly become able to handle many of our own disputes entirely within the domestic firms,” she said.
Teotia was speaking at a function on ‘WTO Dispute Settlement: Between Honest Admiration and Candid Criticism’. It was organised by Centre for WTO Studies and IIFT.
She said India is engaged with the international legal fraternity and also working with Indian law firms in this area. “We are supporting them (domestic firms) in gaining the experience in being able to participate (in disputes),” she said, adding that huge opportunities exists in this areas.
India has been a very active participant in WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism. It is a complainant in about 22 disputes, and respondents in 23 cases and as a third party, the country is participant in about 100 disputes.
Raising certain concerns, Teaotia said: “As we progress, there is an effort to include within the dispute settlement mechanism, the disputes arising out of decisions in other forums and I am talking about very specifically labour and environment issues.”(Agencies)
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