Shailja Singh is a lawyer and trade policy advisor with nearly 15 years of extensive experience in international economic law. She has been part of the Government of India’s trade negotiation, policy and dispute teams for over 12 years. At the Centre for Trade and Investment Law (CTIL), Shailja conducts research on a diverse range of international trade law issues, with a particular interest in digital trade, non-tariff barriers, subsidies, and dispute settlement.
Shailja has worked at the Advisory Centre on WTO Law (ACWL), Geneva, Switzerland on a special secondment — providing legal advice and support on a number of WTO-related policy and dispute matters to developing countries and LDCs. She has also acted as a legal counsel to the Government of India in several WTO disputes. Shailja was part of the Government of India's negotiating teams for E-Commerce, SPS and TBT chapters of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) from 2016 to 2019; and has also participated in India’s FTA negotiations with Australia, the European Union, United Kingdom and the United Arab Emirates, and in WTO’s fisheries subsidies negotiations.
As a trade capacity-building specialist, she plays a key role in training courses delivered under the India Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) initiative of the Ministry of External Affairs, and has trained more than 1,000 government officials from over 50 countries to date. From 2014 to 2022, as faculty co-ordinator, Shailja helped conceive and organize the Joint Academy on International Trade Law and Policy, a month-long summer school for law students and legal professionals, offered jointly by the Centre for WTO Studies and the World Trade Institute, Bern.
Shailja joined CTIL as a Legal Consultant - Associate Professor in December 2023, having formerly been with the Centre for WTO Studies, IIFT, New Delhi since 2011. She has previously worked at AZB & Partners, Advocates and Solicitors, Mumbai, and in International Private Banking at ICICI Bank, Mumbai. Shailja completed her LL.M and B.A. LL.B (Hons) degrees at the University of Cambridge, UK and the W.B. National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.