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State Transformation and the Role of Lawyers: The WTO, India, and Transnational Legal Ordering

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Gregory Shaffer ,
James Nedumpara  and
Aseema Sinha
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Abstract

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.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 49 , Issue 3 , September 2015 , pp. 595 - 629
Copyright
© 2015 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

Gregory Shaffer is Chancellor's Professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law; James Nedumpara is Associate Professor and Executive Director, Centre for International Trade and Economic Laws, Jindal Global Law School; Aseema Sinha is Wagener Chair in South Asian Politics and George R. Roberts Fellow, Associate Professor at Claremont Mckenna College.

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