International Economic Law and Policy Blog

Indian Journal of International Economic Law: Call for Papers

The Indian Journal of International Economic Law (IJIEL) is a law journal published by National Law School of India University, Bangalore (NLSIU) under the patronage of the Indian government sponsored chair on WTO Law. The Journal is oriented towards publishing academic work that considers the legal issues in the field of international economic law from a comparative perspective and/or the perspective of the developing world. The IJIEL accepts academic submissions in the form of articles, notes, comments or book reviews. IJIEL is now inviting submissions for Volume 8(1) and 8(2).

Volume 8(1):

Continuing with the past tradition, Volume 8(1) will be a general edition dealing with a host of legal issues in the field of international economic law, which includes multidisciplinary research concerning the WTO, trade laws at various levels of government, financial institutions, regulatory subjects such as taxation and competition policy, various services sectors such as banking and brokerage, linkages to human rights and cultural problems and international commercial arbitration.

Volume 8(2):

This year, considering the contemporary relevance of the Trans Pacific Partnership, IJIEL is coming up with a special issue on the “Implications of the Trans-Pacific Partnership”. The Trans-Pacific Partnership is expected to reshape business practices and trade law regime across the world. We have already received a very enthusiastic response for this issue and hope the student community would also want to contribute to the scholarship on this contemporary topic.

IJIEL is now accepting submissions for both the issues under the following categories:

1.  Articles (5000 to 12000 words) must deal with a theme of interest or importance comprehensively and are expected to show an extensive coverage of existing literature and a high level of analysis.               
2. Essays for the Law in Focus section (3000 to 5000 words) must concisely analyse contemporary legislations, landmark treaties or other specific issues in international economic law of a contemporary nature.
3. Case Notes, Legislative Comments and Book/Article Reviews (2000 to 7000 words).

The Editorial Board invites submissions for Volume No.8(1) and 8(2) of 2016. The Journal follows a rolling submissions policy and the deadline for the forthcoming volume is 25th March, 2016. Please send in your queries or submissions to ijiel.nls@gmail.com.

Financial University Organizes Conference on Russia and the WTO

On 19-20 May 2015, the Financial University of the Russian Federation held its first international conference on the topic of "WTO Law in the Legal System of the Russian Federation: Problems of Application and Teaching."  To my knowledge, this was the first international legal conference held to address the Russian Federation's 2012 accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the current role of the Russian Federation in the WTO.  The Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation (Finuniversitet) is a leading publicly-funded institution of higher professional education (whose roots go back to the early 20th century).  The conference was supported by a grant from the U.S. Russian Foundation for Economic Advancement and the Rule of Law (USRF).

The conference consisted of over two dozen presentations regarding international trade law and policy and the trade law of the Russian government. 

Among the main lecturers on the first day of the conference were: Jan Bohanes, senior counsel of the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (Geneva), who lectured on constructed normal value in antidumping; Professor Steve Charnovitz of George Washington University Law School (Washington, D.C.) who lectured on the WTO-plus provisions in the Russian WTO accession package; Professor Anatoly Kapustin, Head of the Legal Comparative Research Centre who lectured on Russia and WTO Law; Professor Vasilka Sancin of the University of Ljubljana who lectured on models for an appellate mechanism in investor-state dispute settlement; Anait Smbatyan, Senior Expert at the WTO Expertise Center (Moscow) who lectured on WTO implementation; Eric M. Solovy, partner at Sidley Austin LLP (Washington, DC) who lectured on the obligations of and caselaw under the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and the WTO Agreement Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM).  Excellent additional presentations were made by Mark G. Pomar, President of USRF and by Professor and Deputy Rector Dmitry Sorokin of Finuniversitet.

On the second day of the conference, two parallel workshops were held featuring scientific presentations by leading academics and practitioners from Moscow and other Russian cities.  Several presentations addressed the challenges and opportunities of teaching international economic law to Russian students.  In addition, Professor Alexey N. Ruzhin of the Russian Foreign Trade Academy gave a lecture on the enforcement of international trade and customs law in the Russian economy.

Organizing a major global conference on WTO law is a difficult task and Financial University Associate Professor Igor Shulyatyev is to be commended for planning and carrying out a landmark conference on key policy and technical challenges facing the Russian government in its WTO membership.  In the future, the Financial University should consider building on its success and holding a second annual conference in 2016.