Joint statement initiative on services domestic regulation and India : cost of ideology?

Abstract

The negotiations of the Joint Statement Initiative on Services Domestic Regulation (JSI-SDR) were launched by a group of 59 WTO members at the 11th WTO Ministerial Conference in December 2017. These negotiations were concluded in December 2021 with 67 WTO members participating in the resulting agreement, accounting for 90 percent of global services trade. The JSI-SDR covers new disciplines on licensing and qualification requirements and procedures and technical standards. These disciplines seek to make the authorization process to supply a service clearer, more predictable and more transparent without making them unduly burdensome. Though the JSI-SDR is open for all WTO Members to join, India has decided not to join it. This paper analyses the provisions of the JSI-SDR from the perspective of major problems faced by India’s services sector and how JSI-SDR provisions can help India overcome such problems through transparency, good governance and international cooperation. It argues that India’s decision of not joining the JSI-SDR seems to be more ideology based than substantive, and may risk India’s emerging significance in global services trade.