Out of alignment

India should accept international arbitration

The long-awaited trade and investment treaties between India and the United Kingdom (UK) may founder on New Delhi’s approach to the contentious issue of arbitration. In the negotiations on the India-UK bilateral investment treaty, which is supposed to conclude in parallel with the trade agreement, London has expressed discomfort with New Delhi’s insistence on the “exhaustion of local remedies clause” if there are disputes. This clause has been the chief reason India unilaterally terminated 68 out of 87 Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs) between 2013 and 2019 and forms a key element of a model BIT the government had started exploring