Biography

Shailja Singh is Professor of Practice and Director, LL.M. Programme at Jindal Global Law School. She is a lawyer and trade policy advisor with several years of extensive experience in the practice of international economic law. Between 2011 and 2026, Shailja was a member of the Government of India’s trade negotiations, policy, and international dispute teams as part of the Centre for Trade and Investment Law (CTIL) and the Centre for WTO Studies — think tanks established by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, New Delhi. 

Her research spans a diverse range of international economic law issues, with particular interests in digital trade, non-tariff barriers, subsidies, and dispute settlement. She has also worked at the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL), Geneva, on special secondment, providing legal advice on WTO-related policy and dispute matters to several developing countries and LDCs. 

Shailja has acted as a legal counsel to the Government of India in several WTO disputes. She has served as an expert member of the Government of India’s trade negotiating teams, covering bilateral negotiations with the United States, European Union, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement and the WTO fisheries subsidies negotiations.

A recognised trade capacity-building specialist, she has played a key role in training programmes under the Ministry of External Affairs’ India Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) initiative, having trained more than 1,200 government officials from over 50 countries. Shailja was key administrator in the organisation of a 2-years trade capacity-building programme for government officials from Afghanistan and Bhutan, funded by the International Trade Centre, Geneva. Between 2014 and 2022, she served as Faculty Coordinator for the Joint Academy on International Trade Law and Policy, contributing to the conception and organisation of the month-long summer school jointly offered by the Centre for WTO Studies and the World Trade Institute, Bern, where she continues to teach. She regularly lectures and publishes in the field of international economic law.

She has also worked at AZB & Partners, Advocates and Solicitors, Mumbai, and in international private banking at ICICI Bank, Mumbai. 

Shailja holds an LL.M. from the University of Cambridge, UK, and a B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) from the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata, where she was awarded the L. Jhunjhunwala Gold Medal. She is currently pursuing her doctoral research on digital products and standardisation at the World Trade Institute, University of Bern.