Anniversary Editorial

 

 

A Yearful of Thoughts

 

 

Shashank P. Kumar*

 

 

 

      I feel honoured and proud writing this Editorial on the occasion of the maiden anniversary of Trade, Law and Development. When TL&D started a year-and-a-half ago with only the name as a certainty, our goal was rather simple: to somehow compile and publish the first issue. Having had failed to conclude a publishing and distribution agreement, we almost wound up even before we started. Thankfully, like all things life, this too turned out to be a transitory phase. Looking at the response to the publication of the Inaugural Issue online, our proposal for publishing TL&D in print was accepted by the Honble Vice Chancellor and Patron of TL&D. 

 

      By the time of the Second Issue, the idea of a Special Issue began to take form. The choice of theme for the anniversary Special Issue was not a difficult one to make, with International Investment Law being a popular subject of discussion within the University. Several recent events (and controversies) contributed to the growing importance and popularity of the subject and made the choice a little easier.[1]

 

      In this Editorial, however, I do not seek to discuss the theme of this Issue (which is discussed by Manu Sanan, the Issue Editor, on pp.9- 18). I instead wish to briefly discuss the ideology and purpose of TL&D as they have developed over the course of the past year, concluding by summarizing the years work and my comments on the road ahead.

 

Purpose and Beliefs of TL&D

 

      Coming back to the evolution of TL&D over the first year, along with the work on the Special Issue began a phase of discussion by the Staff of the Journal about its scope, purpose, and ideology. Here, I seek to briefly summarize the outcome of such discussions.[2]

 

      To summarize in a sentence before we proceed any further, the purpose of TL&D is to generate and sustain a democratic debate on issues of world trade and law of relevance to the developing world. It is this purpose that forms the pillar of our ideology and defines our philosophy and scope. Let me now expand upon this statement of the Journals purpose and discuss the thoughts behind it in greater detail.

 

      At the outset, TL&D aims at not only producing and generating new debate and discussions, but also strengthening and sustaining the discussion on issues that bear contemporary relevance. These complementary aims guide the composition of each issue of the Journal and the selection of our content. 

 

      To sustain ongoing debates TL&D seeks to publish the thoughts and ideas of established academicians, practitioners, jurists and policy makers. I must clarify here that established is by no means a reference only to the conventional and popular, but includes those who hold critical and iconoclastic views and justify them consistently and rationally.[3]

 

      Towards the end of generating new debate, TL&D is committed to providing a forum to students from the developing world, especially India, for publishing their ideas. In addition to sending our call to over 600 law schools in India and around 20 distributed elsewhere over the developing world, almost as an unwritten rule, each issue of the Journal includes at least one quality and thought provoking work by an Indian student.[4] In addition, by maintaining very high standards of review and editing we hope to ensure that the debate so generated bears all the necessary attributes of quality legal scholarship.

 

      Let us now turn to what the Journal seeks to generate and sustain. TL&D seeks to generate and sustain a democratic debate. Amartya Sen perhaps best characterizes the essence of democratic when in The Idea of Justice he states that:

 

[D]emocracy must also be seen more generally in terms of the capacity to enrich reasoned engagement through enhancing informational availability and the feasibility of interactive discussion. Democracy has to be judged not just by the institutions that formally exist but by the extent to which different voices from diverse sections of the people can actually be heard.[5]

 

      Having had come across the above passage almost at the same time as the publication of the Inaugural Issue of TL&D (The Idea of Justice was published in July, 2009), I believe that it best sums up our idea of a democratic debate at TL&D. Borrowing Prof. Sens terminology, TL&D seeks to enhance informational ability and the feasibility of interactive discussion[6] on issues of world trade and law in the developing world in an effort to promote the expression and exchange of diverse opinions and viewpoints.

 

      An expression of our resolve towards promoting a democratic debate by enhancing informational ability and the feasibility of interactive discussion is found in the access policies of the Journal. TL&D follows an open access policy whereby all are works are made available on the Journal website free-of-charge immediately upon publication[7] and are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.[8] In addition, the Journal is a signatory to the Budapest Open Access Initiative[9] and is archived on the PKP-Open Archives Harvester2 archive.[10] Indeed, one of the main reasons for the in-house online publishing and distribution of the Journal (as opposed to publishing and distributing through established publishing houses) is our commitment towards improving access to research and dissemination of information through our Open Access policy.

 

      Next, the statement of purpose defines the scope of the Journal. TL&D seeks to generate and sustain such a democratic debate on issues of world trade and law. Apart from pure trade subjects such as WTO Law, Investment Law, Law of International Finance, Competition Law and Policy, International Commercial Law and International Arbitration, TL&D includes within its scope the subjects of Public and Private International Law, Environmental Law and Regulation, Intellectual Property Rights, Human Rights and Sustainable Development to the extent that these relate to larger issues of world trade.

 

      Further, in defining our scope to include law we encompass issues not only of public and private international law but domestic and municipal legal issues, as well. In fact, as a Journal published by an Indian university we strongly believe in the need to develop an inward looking focus[11] for international economic law teaching in India, specifically, and in the developing world, generally. The need for such an inward looking focus in international economic law teaching in Indias case is succinctly summarized by Seema Sapra in her work on identifying new agendas for international economic law teaching in India:

 

At present, [international economic law (IEL)] courses in India often do not consider the domestic and international issues that IEL raises from the perspective of the domestic and regional political economy. An inward focus would be useful not only because the domestic environment is where most students will locate their careers, but also because in not doing so, these courses miss out on big substantive questions of how IEL interacts with the domestic political economy of India and on the many fascinating research projects that these questions would offer. In addition, the study of IEL in its interaction with the domestic political economy would also generate the most useful kinds of research, discourse and knowledge-creation in the Indian context, which could contribute in a significant way to the overall national agenda and efforts for reform and development.[12]

 

      In line with the above reasoning, we encourage and publish research and scholarship on domestic legal issues arising out of international economic relations of India and other developing countries.[13]

 

      Coming to the last aspect of the Journals statement of purpose – to generate and sustain a democratic debate on issues of world trade and law of relevance to the developing world. Our feelings on this are perhaps best captured by a blurb on the webpage of the Trade, Law and Development Group on the social networking website Facebook[14] which declares: We love to hear the Third World shout!

 

      That however, represents only half of what we love. Not only do we love to hear the Third World shout but we love to hear anyone concerned about the Third World shout![15] In this sense, and to put it more formally, TL&D shares its objectives[16] with those of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) to the extent that TWAIL seeks through scholarship, policy and politics to eradicate the conditions of underdevelopment in the Third World.[17]

 

      Our previously discussed belief that an established author is not just one who is conventional and popular but one who develops a rational and cogent compliments our objective of promoting scholarship and research of relevance to the developing world. We seek to promote scholarship that advances well-reasoned and -researched arguments addressing the concerns of the developing countries.

 

      Let me end this brief discussion by adding just one additional thought on a matter of great importance to student-run law reviews in India. One of the biggest challenges faced by a student-run law review in India is the problem of ensuring continuity. Many a periodical has been started by students only to be found gathering dust in the archives after a few years. At TL&D we have constantly tried to take steps to avoid such a future by ensuring that the constitution and functioning of the Journal remain inclusive and involve students from all years of the undergraduate course. That said, I can only hope that the steps we have taken are sufficient to ensure continuity in publication.

 

      These then, in short, are my thoughts on the purpose, ideology and philosophy of Trade, Law and Development.

 

Recent Developments

 

      The following is a summary of developments and news in relation to the Journal over the past year:

 

      Yogesh Pai was appointed the new Faculty-in-Charge beginning with the winter semester, 2010. Prior to joining the faculty of National Law University, Jodhpur, Mr. Pai worked at the Centre for Trade and Development (New Delhi) and the South Centre (Geneva). His areas of interest include intellectual property law and international trade. An inspiring teacher and keen thinker, I am sure the Journal will greatly benefit from his guidance and supervision.

 

      Prof. B. S. Chimni, a member of our Board of Advisors and the Chairperson of the Centre for International Legal Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, visited the University campus and held a discussion with the staff members of TL&D sharing his ideas on TWAIL. Needless to say, it was an inspiring talk.

 

      Inspired by Prof. Chimnis talk and driven by our own beliefs, the Board of Editors chose TWAIL as the theme of the next Special Issue. The issue is scheduled for publication in the first quarter of 2011. Prof. Chimni has kindly consented to be the Consulting Editor for this issue. Meghana Sharafudeen will be the Staff Issue Editor.

 

      The process for reorganizing the Board of Editors and appointing the staff was undertaken in April 2010. It was decided that from Vol.II, Issue 2 onwards TL&D shall have a Staff of thirteen students. The Board shall, from now on, comprise of two Editors-in-Chief, one Managing Editor, two Content Editors and four Associate Editors. In addition, it was decided that the Journal shall appoint four students from the first two years of the undergraduate program at the University as Proofreaders.

 

      The appointment of the Staff members for Vol.II, Issue 2 and Vol.III, Issue 1 was notified on 16 April, 2010. Manu Sanan and Meghana Sharafudeen – two very able final-year Trade and Investment Law Honours students – will be taking over as the Editors-in-Chief of the Journal. Prateek Bhattacharya has been appointed as the Managing Editor. Aditi Patanjali and Gopalakrishnan, R. shall be the Content Editors. In total, the new Staff of thirteen has seven members that have been reappointed and six new appointments.

 

      Finally, I am happy to report that we recently concluded an agreement with HeinOnline under which our entire content will be archived and made available on the HeinOnline database.[18] All works will still continue to be licensed under a Creative Commons license.

 

Acknowledgements and Concluding Remarks

 

      I would like to end by acknowledging, on behalf of the Board of Editors of the Journal, the efforts of those who have contributed towards the success of TL&D over the past year. I want to thank our advisors for providing valuable suggestions and ideas for the development of the Journal; our authors for considering us as a forum worthy of their scholarship; and our readers for giving all our efforts meaning and purpose. None of what has been achieved by TL&D in the past year would have been possible without the support of our advisors, authors and readers.

 

      In particular, I wish to thank four individuals without whose support perhaps TL&D would not have come into existence. We are grateful to Justice N. N. Mathur (Vice Chancellor, National Law University, Jodhpur) for his espousal of the cause of the Journal and legal writing and scholarship in the University at large. As our Founder-Patron, he continues to lead and guide the Staff of the Journal.

 

      Had it not been for the persistence of Prof. S. Radha Singh (now a professor at National Law University, Delhi) perhaps even the idea for the Journal would not have germinated. She was determined to see the Journal publish its first issue and contributed towards drafting the initial proposal and policies of TL&D.

 

      I must also thank Mr. Bipin Kumar (now a Consultant of Law at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi) for his selfless dedication towards the cause of international economic law teaching at National Law University, Jodhpur. He was single-handedly responsible for maintaining the quality and popularity of trade and investment law courses at the University and provided the real food for thought.

 

      If one were to ask me to come up with one incident that kick-started the whole process of publishing the Inaugural Issue, it would perhaps be an e-mail from Prof. Raj Bhala (Rice Distingushed Professor, School of Law, University of Kansas, Lawrence). The proposal for TL&D had been lying around on my desk through the winter of 2008. Having had failed to get submissions, we were set on missing the deadline to publish the Journal by the time the new academic year began (July 2009). In February 2009, Prof. Bhala mailed his manuscript titled Teaching China GATT for publication.[19] His was the first manuscript we received. By the end of July we had published the Inaugural Issue. We are grateful to Prof. Bhala for his constant support and encouragement. 

 

      Let me conclude by quoting a few lines from Czeslaw Miloszs And Yet the Books:

 

[] I imagine the earth when I am no more:

Nothing happens, no loss, its still a strange pageant,

Womens dresses, dewy lilacs, a song in the valley.

Yet the books will be there on the shelves, well born,

Derived from people, but also from radiance, heights.[20]

 

With this, I thank the current Staff members for their dedication and diligence and wish the new Board of the Journal all success for the future, hoping that TL&D continues to be derived from people, radiance and heights.