Impact Of WTO Agreements On India's Foreign Trade Regulation
- IJLLR Journal
- 3 hours ago
- 1 min read
Adv Abhirami P, LLM Commercial Law, Bharata Mata School of Legal Studies, Choondy, Aluva
ABSTRACT
India's accession to the World Trade Organization in 1995 marked a decisive turning point in the regulation of its foreign trade, extending a rules-based multilateral discipline into domains previously governed by discretionary licensing and quantitative controls. This article examines how the WTO's core agreements GATT 1994, the Agreement on Agriculture, TRIPS, GATS, the SPS and TBT Agreements, the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures, the Trade Facilitation Agreement, and TRIMs have reshaped India's trade statutes, tariff structures, intellectual property regime and dispute-settlement engagement. Adopting a doctrinal and policy- analytical approach, the article traces the legislative consequences of these commitments, including successive amendments to the Patents Act, the enactment of the Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers' Rights Act, and reforms to the Customs Act and Foreign Trade Policy, before evaluating sector-wise impact on agriculture, pharmaceuticals, services and textiles. It further examines landmark case law and policy episodes including the Novartis patentability dispute, the India–Solar Cells ruling, and the recurring challenge to India's Minimum Support Price mechanism that illustrate the practical limits WTO membership places on domestic regulatory autonomy. The article concludes that India's engagement with the WTO has been neither passive compliance nor wholesale resistance, but a continuing negotiation between multilateral obligation and domestic developmental priorities, and offers suggestions for how India might strengthen its position as the multilateral trading system enters a period of institutional strain and renewed negotiation.
Keywords: World Trade Organization; India; foreign trade policy; TRIPS Agreement; Agreement on Agriculture; dispute settlement.
