Call for Submissions: Trade, Law and Development, Special Issue (Submit by Mar 15)

Trade, Law and Development (TL&D) is a biannual, student-run, academic journal published by National Law University, Jodhpur, India (NLU, Jodhpur).

The objective of the Journal is to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas and constructive debate on legal and policy issues surrounding world trade, cross-border investment, and development, among other inter-related aspects of international law. The main focus areas of the Journal are international trade law and international economic law.

Founded in 2009, the philosophy of Trade, Law and Development has been to generate and sustain a constructive and democratic debate on emergent issues in international economic law and to serve as a forum for the discussion and distribution of ideas. Towards these ends, the Journal has published works by noted scholars such as the WTO DDG Yonov F. Agah, Dr. (Prof.) Ernst Ulrich Petersmann, Prof. Steve Charnovitz, Prof. Petros Mavroidis, Prof. Mitsuo Matsuhita, Prof. Raj Bhala, Prof. Joel Trachtman, Dr. (Prof.) Gabrielle Marceau, Prof. Simon Lester, Prof. Bryan Mercurio, and Prof. M. Sornarajah among others. TL&D also has the distinction of being ranked the best journal in India across all fields of law for seven consecutive years by Washington and Lee University, School of Law.

Pursuant to this philosophy, the Board of Editors of Trade, Law and Development is pleased to announce “Looking Ahead: Addressing the Challenges Faced by the International Trade Regime” as the theme for its next Special Issue (Vol. XIV, No. 1).

With the “crown jewel of the WTO” in crisis and the deadlock between developing and developed States in various negotiations at the WTO, Members’ confidence in the multilateral trading system is at an all-time low. This is evidenced by the rising number of FTAs around the globe, and States preferring regionalism over the multilateral framework. In turn, this has also severally impacted the WTO’s ability to provide a forum for negotiations to liberalise trade and establish new rules; to oversee and administer multilateral trade rules; and to resolve trade disputes amongst members. Furthermore, the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, has exacerbated the stress. Resultantly, WTO Member States are adopting a more protectionist approach.

While the WTO’s role in helping economies recover from decreasing trade volumes has increased multi-fold, it remains to be seen how the organization will grapple with each of these challenges individually. Since TL&D’s objective is to provide a forum of exchange of ideas and constructive debate on legal and policy issues, the above-mentioned factors arguably constitute some of the biggest issues for international trade discourse this year. Through this theme, the Journal aims to encourage discussion particularly on how to protect the multilateral rules-based trading system and in turn, prevent the march towards a pre-WTO power-based trading system.

While the theme is broad enough to cover a wide range of issues, an indicative list of specific areas is as follows:

1. Appellate Body Crisis and the Multi Party Interim Appeal Arrangement (MPIA)

2. Transparency and Notification/ Transparency and Consensus-Building within the WTO

3. Status of Developing Countries at the WTO

4. China and the WTO

5. Agriculture and Development vis-à-vis the WTO Agreement on Agriculture

6. Environmental Sustainability

7. Linking Trade and Non-Trade Issues

8. COVID-19 and Reorganization of Global Supply Chains

9. Increasing Reliance on the National Security Exception by WTO Members

10. Increase in Barriers to Cross-Border Investments/ Protectionism

11. USA and the WTO

12. Stagnancy in Multilateral Trade Liberalisation

13. Mega-Regional Trade Agreements as an Alternative to the WTO

These sub-issues are not exhaustive, and the Journal is open to receiving submissions on all aspects related to the challenges faced by the international trade regime and its impact on the global trading system.

Accordingly, the Board of Editors of Trade, Law and Development is pleased to invite original, unpublished manuscripts for publication in the Special Issue of the Journal (Vol. XIV, No. 1) in the form of ‘Articles’, ‘Notes’, ‘Comments’ and ‘Book Reviews’, focusing on the theme “Looking Ahead: Addressing the Challenges Faced by the International Trade Regime”.

Manuscripts received by March 15^th, 2022, pertaining to any sub-theme within the purview of challenges faced by international trade will be reviewed for publication in the Summer ’22 issue.

Manuscripts may be submitted via e-mail. For further information about the Journal, please click here. For submission guidelines, please click here.

LAST DATE FOR SUBMISSIONS: 15 March, 2022

In case of any queries, please feel free to contact us at: editors@tradelawdevelopment.com.

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