The Art of Strategic Policy Translation: In Conversation with Tamanna Bansal

1. Kindly introduce yourself to our readers.

I currently serve as an Associate Legal at the Centre for WTO Studies, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, where I contribute to the development of India’s trade policies, free trade agreements (FTAs), and trade review policies in the trade service sector. My role involves participating in trade negotiation rounds with other countries and engaging in inter-sectional discussions. I also contribute to the publication of working papers that reflect India’s stance on various trade issues.

Prior to this, I gained valuable experience as a Law Research Associate at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Chandigarh Bench, for three years. In this role, I assisted Members and the Head of Department by drafting judgments, orders, and conducting in-depth research on Insolvency Bankruptcy and Company Law.

Academically, I have completed PhD in corporate law from Rajiv Gandhi National University of Law (RGNUL), Patiala, which has further deepened my expertise in the field. My research has led to the publication of various research papers in reputable international and national journals, covering a wide range of topics including insolvency, company law, and international trade law. Additionally, I have presented several research papers at various forums, showcasing my ability to communicate complex legal concepts effectively.

I have also had the privilege of participating in many national and international conferences/conventions, where I have engaged with experts, policy-makers, and scholars on contemporary issues in trade law and corporate governance. These experiences have not only broadened my perspective but also equipped me with the skills to navigate complex legal and policy issues.

2. Managing a demanding policy role with your PhD research at RGNUL is no small feat. How do your academic deep-dives into corporate law directly influence the way you draft high-stakes trade clauses today?

Thank you for the question.

Balancing a demanding policy role at the Centre for WTO Studies with the rigour of a PhD in Corporate Law from RGNUL, Patiala, has indeed been challenging yet deeply rewarding. It keeps me grounded in both academic depth and real-world application.

My doctoral research and earlier work as Law Research Associate at the NCLT, Chandigarh Bench, gave me extensive hands-on experience in corporate law, insolvency, and bankruptcy frameworks. Drafting judgments, conducting detailed legal research, and analysing complex corporate structures taught me to approach legal provisions with precision, foresight, and an eye for long-term implications, skills that directly shape how I draft and negotiate high-stakes trade clauses today.

Specific ways this academic and Tribunal experience influences my current work:

1. Robust corporate safeguards in trade agreements: Corporate law expertise helps me embed strong investor protection, governance standards, and dispute resolution mechanisms into FTAs and services trade chapters. I draw on my understanding of company law principles to ensure clauses on market access, regulatory coherence, and cross-border investment align with India’s domestic corporate regime, minimising future compliance conflicts or disputes.

2. Risk assessment and contingency planning: Deep dives into insolvency and bankruptcy during my PhD and NCLT tenure sharpened my ability to anticipate regulatory risks. When drafting trade policy language or review mechanisms, I proactively build in safeguards — whether it is fallback provisions, review triggers, or alignment with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules so that India’s trade commitments remain resilient under varying economic conditions.

3. Interdisciplinary and evidence-based drafting: My research papers and conference presentations on the intersection of corporate law, insolvency, and international trade law trained me to connect dots across domains. This translates into clearer, more coherent clauses that reflect India’s overall policy stance. For instance, when contributing to working papers or negotiation briefs, I ensure trade clauses are not isolated but support broader goals like ease of doing business and corporate competitiveness.

In essence, my corporate law foundation acts as a strategic lens helping transform abstract trade objectives into precise, enforceable language that advances India’s interests while remaining consistent with our domestic legal ecosystem.

3. You have first-hand experience at the negotiation table for India’s service sector. When trying to align India’s ambitions with the European Union’s (EU’s) established regulatory landscape, what has been the most unexpected dynamic you have encountered in securing Mode 4 commitments?

Thank you for the question.

Having been at the negotiation table for India’s services sector, including the intensive work streams on the India — EU FTA (concluded in January 2026), Mode 4 remains one of the most strategically vital yet challenging chapters. In the India — EU FTA negotiations (concluded January 2026), the most unexpected dynamic in securing Mode 4 commitments was the extreme regulatory fragmentation across 27 member states.

While we anticipated caution on migration and wage issues, the real challenge was how national-level autonomy in visas, labour market tests, and professional qualification recognition consistently undermined the uniformity we sought at the EU level. Even after technical convergence in Brussels on information and communications technologies (ICTs), contractual service suppliers, and mutual recognition agreements (MRAs), implementation varied sharply between countries, turning seemingly agreed language into lengthy, case-by-case national procedures.

My corporate law PhD and NCLT experience helped me push for stronger transparency, review mechanisms, and fallback clauses to bridge this gap. The final text delivers meaningful gains, but it highlighted that in multi-jurisdictional settings, implementation risk is often greater than negotiation risk.

4. The EU places a massive emphasis on sustainability and frameworks like the ICCPR. How does this focus shape the way your team approaches the structural drafting of the modern India — EU FTA?

The EU’s strong emphasis on sustainability (climate action, green economy, circular practices) and human rights frameworks such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 1966 (ICCPR), core International Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions, and responsible business conduct has directly shaped how team at the Centre for WTO Studies drafts the Services and Mode 4 chapters of the modern India — EU FTA (concluded January 2026). We mainstream these considerations into the services architecture rather than treating them as side issues in the Trade and Sustainable Development (TSD) chapter.

Here’s how this focus influences our structural approach specifically in relation to services:

1. Promotion of green and sustainable services in market access: Negotiation expanded commitments in environmental services, renewable energy consulting, sustainable tourism, and low-carbon IT-enabled services. Sustainability language is woven into the positive-list scheduling and regulatory cooperation provisions to facilitate genuine trade in green services while preventing the EU from using environmental standards as disguised barriers to Indian service suppliers.

2. Mode 4 (movement of natural persons) with human rights and labour safeguards: The EU pushed hard to link temporary mobility of professionals (ICTs, contractual service suppliers, independent professionals) to adherence to fair labour conditions, non-discrimination, and ICCPR-aligned protections. Balanced text was advanced India’s ambitions for skilled mobility while embedding commitments to responsible recruitment, ethical working conditions, and grievance mechanisms — without turning Mode 4 into a vehicle for permanent migration or wage parity disputes.

3. Robust “right to regulate” and policy space clauses: Drawing directly from my corporate law PhD and NCLT Chandigarh Bench experience (where I saw how regulatory overreach can trigger corporate distress), strong right-to-regulate language throughout the services chapter technique was used. This ensures India retains the ability to apply its own sustainability and data-protection standards [aligned with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP Act)] to incoming EU service providers, while protecting our outbound service exporters from overly prescriptive EU requirements.

4. Interlinkages between TSD and services chapters: Sustainability obligations are connected to services through cooperative mechanisms — joint working groups on green services, mutual recognition of qualifications in sustainability-related professions, and capacity-building — rather than binding enforcement or sanctions. This structure supports Indian service firms in meeting EU expectations without compromising competitiveness.

In short, the EU’s focus forces us to draft services provisions with greater foresight and balance: Turning potential compliance burdens into opportunities for Indian companies while safeguarding regulatory autonomy and developmental priorities.

This approach ensures the FTA strengthens India’s services export engine (IT, professional, and emerging green services) in a sustainable and rights-respecting manner.

5. Much of your daily research focuses on the import and export of services. Looking at the bilateral drafts currently in the pipeline, in what specific ways are we successfully innovating past the traditional boundaries of the WTO’s foundational General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) framework?

In the bilateral FTAs currently in the pipeline, innovation beyond the WTO’s GATS framework is in these specific ways:

1. Embedding advanced domestic regulation disciplines.

2. Offering deeper, sector-specific commitments with hybrid/negative-list scheduling in IT, fintech, financial services, and professional services.

3. Creating structured, enforceable Mode 4 annexes with longer stays, renewal pathways, and mutual recognition of qualifications.

4. Introducing comprehensive standalone digital trade chapters covering cross-border data flows, source code protection, and paperless trading.

These go well beyond GATS while safeguarding our regulatory space and developmental priorities.

6. Your methodology relies heavily on comparative databases like the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (STRI) to identify regulatory gaps. Could you share an instance where a deep dive into these numbers completely shifted a negotiation strategy or policy perspective?

Yes, we rely heavily on the OECD STRI (and its sub-indices) to benchmark regulatory gaps. A clear instance came during the India — EU FTA negotiations on professional services and Mode 4.

A deep dive into the 2024—2025 STRI data revealed that while India’s overall score was higher than the OECD average, the largest bilateral gaps with key EU member states (Germany, France, Spain) were not in market access but in qualification recognition, licensing procedures, and economic needs tests.

This completely shifted the strategy from broad horizontal market access requests and instead prioritised targeted, binding mutual recognition frameworks and lighter Mode 4 disciplines in a dedicated annex. The numbers made it clear that without addressing these specific regulatory bottlenecks, commercial gains would remain illusory.

7. Transitioning from the NCLT to the Ministry of Commerce is a fascinating leap. Given your hands-on experience with corporate insolvency, how prepared do you think the current Indian legal framework is to handle the valuation and monetisation of data as a corporate asset during cross-border defaults?

After three years at the NCLT, Chandigarh Bench, where I assisted in drafting judgments and conducting deep research on corporate insolvency and bankruptcy matters, moving to the Centre for WTO Studies at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry allowed me to apply those same precision-oriented skills to high-stakes international trade and investment policy. The leap from domestic restructuring to cross-border trade negotiations felt natural, both domains demand rigorous analysis of asset value, risk allocation, and long-term enforceability.

From my NCLT experience and PhD research in corporate law, I have seen first-hand how traditional tangible and intangible assets [physical property, intellectual property (IP), receivables] are valued and monetised under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC). Data especially customer, operational, and proprietary datasets is increasingly recognised as a valuable intangible asset under the IBC. Resolution professionals and valuers are expected to include it in the information memorandum to maximise value for creditors.

However, when it comes to valuation and monetisation of data during cross-border defaults, the current Indian legal framework is only moderately prepared, it has strong foundations but significant gaps, particularly in cross-border scenarios.

8. Witnessing the ground reality of corporate distress at the NCLT, Chandigarh Bench must offer a unique lens. How does that practical adjudicatory experience change the way you evaluate the real-world economic impact of high-level international trade commitments?

My three years at the NCLT, Chandigarh Bench including drafting judgments on corporate distress and insolvency gave me a unique, ground-level view of the real human and economic costs of business failure.

This experience fundamentally changed how I evaluate high-level trade commitments: I now assess them through a risk-adjusted, resilience-focused lens rather than abstract economic projections. I pay far greater attention to potential downside risks, corporate vulnerabilities, the need for robust safeguards, transition periods, and strong implementation/enforcement mechanisms to protect Indian firms from undue distress.

It ensures our trade policy prioritises sustainable outcomes over optimistic models.

9. You sit right at the intersection of domestic company law and international trade. Looking ahead, which emerging global trade standard do you believe will fundamentally disrupt and reshape Indian corporate governance the most?

Sitting at the intersection of domestic company law (through three years drafting insolvency judgments at the NCLT, Chandigarh Bench and my PhD in corporate law from RGNUL) and international trade policy at the Centre for WTO Studies, I believe the mandatory corporate sustainability due diligence (CSDDD-style) frameworks increasingly embedded in modern FTAs will fundamentally disrupt and reshape Indian corporate governance more than any other emerging global trade standard.

From my NCLT experience, I have seen how weak governance and unaddressed risks cascade into corporate distress, creditor losses, and job impacts. CSDDD-style standards flip the script: They force proactive, enterprise-wide risk governance before distress hits. Indian Boards will need to:

1. Elevate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) competence (climate, human rights, biodiversity) as a director qualification.

2. Embed due diligence into corporate decision-making, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), financing, and even insolvency resolution plans.

3. Align with evolving the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) expectations as India responds to these global pressures.

In my current role, this is already shaping safeguards and cooperation mechanisms in FTAs ensuring India retains policy space while helping our companies turn compliance into a competitive edge in services and manufacturing exports.

In short, while digital trade rules or carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) are significant, CSDDD-driven mandatory due diligence will most profoundly rewrite the DNA of Indian corporate governance from shareholder-centric to stakeholder-resilient because it touches Board accountability, risk architecture, and long-term value creation at the deepest level.

10. Your journey from Symbiosis to National Law University Odisha (NLUO), and now into the heart of India’s trade policy, covers a lot of ground. Beyond standard legal research, what is the one crucial skill young lawyers must cultivate to thrive in this fast-paced space between law, economics, and diplomacy?

From my undergraduate days at Symbiosis Law School, through NLUO for my LLM, the three grueling years as Law Research Associate at the NCLT, Chandigarh Bench (drafting insolvency and company law judgments), my PhD in corporate law at RGNUL Patiala, and now serving as Associate Legal at the Centre for WTO Studies in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the path has indeed spanned classrooms, courtrooms, negotiation tables, and policy corridors.

Beyond standard legal research (which remains foundational), the single most crucial skill young lawyers must cultivate to thrive in the fast-paced intersection of law, economics, and diplomacy is strategic policy translation.

It is the ability to take complex, technical legal analysis and rapidly convert it into clear, actionable, multi-stakeholder insights that speak the language of economists (GDP impact, sectoral competitiveness, value-chain effects), diplomats (negotiating leverage, red lines, reciprocity), and policy-makers (political feasibility, implementation reality, long-term resilience).

At the NCLT, I saw daily how a seemingly technical provision in the IBC could either rescue a company or trigger cascading distress for thousands of workers and suppliers. That ground reality taught me that law does not operate in a vacuum, it has immediate economic and human consequences. When I moved to the Centre for WTO Studies, I realised the same principle applies at the international level, only at vastly greater scale.

In India — EU negotiations, for instance, we might spend weeks perfecting Mode 4 text on contractual service suppliers. But the real value lies in translating that legal language.

Without this translation skill, even the sharpest legal mind remains a technician. With it, you become a trusted advisor who bridges the gap between legal precision and policy outcomes.