NEW DELHI, May 2: 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.”
She said that such cases would pose a great challenge in the coming years for developing countries because very often these are conditions which add as restrictions in the freedom of trade particularly for developing countries.
She also said that as the global trade slows “there tends to be a much greater level of protectionism across the world and that is what we seeing now that there is an increasing use of trade remedies and as these are used often, some of these would also end up as disputes”.
Further, the secretary said there is also a need to work with law schools within India to deepen the specific courses and to increase the interest of the younger generation of the legal fraternity in trade laws.
“I believe that cost (to contest cases in WTO) is also one of the reason why developing countries are not utilising this (dispute) mechanism,” she added.
“We are trying to address it by working much more loosely with the domestic law firms, so that they can represent not just India but also other developing countries who may need to use those skill sets which are much more affordable,” Teaotia said.
Flagging concerns, the Commerce Secretary said the WTO has large number of cases and the time taken to an effective resolution is fairly challenging now.
According to WTO, dispute settlement is the central pillar of the multilateral trading system. Without a means of settling disputes, the rules-based system would be less effective because the rules could not be enforced.
India has won as well as lost several cases in the WTO. Recently the WTO dispute panel has ruled against India on its solar mission programme. (PTI)
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