Writing a Script for India’s FTA Dispute Settlement Chapters

Abstract

India should negotiate robust dispute settlement chapters in its free trade agreements (FTAs). Through appropriate specific provisions in those chapters, India should pursue three goals, namely, the swift, just resolution of disputes, development of a common law on international trade, and enhancement of the rule of law in the Indo-Pacific region. India’s pursuit of these goals will help it expand its influence across the region, and counter the prospect of an authoritarian Chinese Communist Party (CCP) essentially dictating how trade and investment disputes are to be resolved. However, for India to pursue such negotiations, it must first resolve its bipolar approach to trade policy, between Nehruvian Socialism and Market-Oriented Reformism, which has paralysed it from pursuing an aggressive FTA agenda amidst understandable concerns about the nexus among trade, growth, and poverty alleviation. That means it will have to de-emphasize its current – and quixotic – policy of Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India). dispute settlement, adjudication, arbitration, WTO, USMCA, FTA, CPTPP, judicial interpretation, textualism, negotiations, binding, blockage, panel, appellate, procedures, deadlines, subject matter jurisdiction, transparency, precedent, stare decisis, common law, rule of law