India’s WTO engagement transformed its developmental state model while building legal capacity to shape global trade rules.
Authors
Gregory Shaffer, University of California, Irvine, School of Law, United States
James J. Nedumpara, Professor, Centre for International Trade and Economic Laws, Jindal Global Law School, Sonipat, India
Aseema Sinha, Claremont Mckenna College, United States
Summary
This article explains the impact of India’s engagement with the law of the World Trade Organization (WTO) on both the Indian state and on the WTO itself. In each case, it explains the role of Indian lawyers within the larger transnational context. In engaging with globalization and the WTO, India has transformed itself. The Indian state has moved toward a new developmental state model involving a stronger emphasis on trade, greater government transparency, and the development of public-private coordination mechanisms in which the government plays a steering role. The analysis shows that it has done so not as an autonomous policy choice, but rather in light of the global context in which the WTO and WTO law form an integral part. Reciprocally, the article displays the ways that India has built legal capacity to attempt to shape the construction, interpretation, and practice of the trade legal order. Indian private lawyers play increasing roles, although they remain on tap, not on top.
Published in: Law and Society Review
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