An Overview on International trade law

The guest lecture held on Friday(25/10/2019)was delivered by Mr. Dilli babu who is a practising Advocate in the Madras High Court on the subject matter of An Overview on International trade law.The session started with how International trade law was established, International trade law includes the appropriate rules and customs for handling trade between countries. It is also used in legal writings as trade between private sectors, which is not right. This branch of law is now an independent field of study as most governments have become part of the world trade, as members of the World trade organisation (WTO). He also mentioned how international trade law can be distinguished with the other International Economic Law. The latter could be said to encompass not only WTO law, but also law governing the international monetary system and currency regulation, as well as the law of international development.The speaker also spoke about lex mercatoria and lex maritima and where it was derived from, The body of rules for transnational trade in the 21st century derives from medieval commercial laws called the lex mercatoria and lex maritima - respectively the law for merchants on land and the law for the merchants on the sea. Modern trade law began shortly after the Second World War, with the negotiation of a multilateral treaty to deal with trade in goods: the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Basically International trade law based on the theories of economic liberalism developed in Europe and later the United States from the 18nth century onwards.In the next session the lecture was about the WTO and its establishment Later in 1995 the World Trade Organisation, a formal international organisation to regulate trade, was established. It is the most important development in the history of international trade law. The purposes and structure of the organisation is governed by the Agreement establishing the World Trade Organisation, also known as the Marrakesh Agreement. It does not specify the actual rules that govern international trade in the specific areas. These are found in separate treaties, annexed to the Marrakesh Agreement. The students had an interactive session about Marrakesh Agreement, they had full involvement with the lecturer.