Taking Stock and Opportunities Ahead

On march 4th, 2014 the workshop Legal Capacity Building in International Trade and Investment Law: Taking Stock and Opportunities Ahead took place at the Graduate institute. The event was organised by the CTEI with support from the SNIS and TradeLab.

The key findings of the workshop can be found in this document.

Background

Developing countries are party to a multitude of international agreements in the field of trade, investment and economic cooperation. Most of these treaties seek to foster economic growth and human development. The negotiation and implementation of these treaties, together with the settlement of disputes arising under them, is increasingly complex. In order to actively engage in and benefit from these regimes, developing countries need technical assistance to build legal capacity.

The goal of the workshop was to take stock of how legal capacity to deal with these agreements is being built within developing countries by domestic and international actors.  The aim was also to draw lessons learned from past experience and to formulate best practices for moving forward.  A secondary aim was to explore whether further cooperation between agencies or a different division of tasks may enhance effectiveness. In addition, the workshop explored the extent to which new technologies (such as online courses/platforms or crowdsourcing) and developments in the field of legal innovation could make capacity building in international economic law more efficient and available to a broader group of beneficiaries, including to smaller stakeholders in developed countries.

With the support of