WTI forges closer cooperation with Indian Institute of Foreign Trade

The Joint Academy on International Trade Law and Policy will offer a graduate level curriculum in the field of trade regulation aimed at participants from India and eventually other developing countries. The intention is to enable them to participate more effectively in the design, conduct and implementation of trade policy and to derive greater benefits from involvement in international trade negotiations.

WTI and CWS will be jointly responsible for the academic programme and staffing. The international faculty will be drawn from the network of the WTI.

The annual four-week Academy will take place at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT), New Delhi, and will address cutting-edge issues in trade regulation and international economic governance. The first Academy is to be hosted from 26 May to 20 June 2014.

The weekly modules, each one of which is open to individual participation, will consist of five days of in-class learning followed by an assessment at the end of either each module or the full four-week period. Participants will include advanced Indian law school students and a range of stakeholders drawn from governmental circles, industry associations, leading law firms, the media and other non-governmental organisations.

The Centre for WTO Studies was set up in 1999 to be a permanent repository of WTO negotiations-related knowledge and documentation. Part of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade since 2002, it undertakes research and provides independent analytical inputs to help the Indian government develop positions in trade negotiations.

The MoU was signed in early April by Prof. Abhijit Das of the CWS and Prof. Thomas Cottier of the WTI. It follows a visit to CWS by Prof. Cottier in January.

For more information on the Academy and how to enrol in it, please contact Shailja Singh at CWS (shailja@iift.ac.in) or Pierre Sauvé at the WTI (pierre.sauve@wti.org). See also http://wtocentre.iift.ac.in/index.asp and www.wti.org.