Book Review: Rupa Chanda and Pralok Gupta, Globalization of Legal Services and Regulatory Reforms
| DOI | 10.1177/0015732515615266 |
| Date | 01 February 2016 |
| Published date | 01 February 2016 |
| Author | Pritam Banerjee |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book Review
Rupa Chanda and Pralok Gupta, Globalization of Legal Services and
Regulatory Reforms. New Delhi: SAGE, 2015, `850, 204 pp., ISBN 978-
93-515-0143-5.
Globalization of Legal Services and Regulatory Reforms (published by SAGE)
fills a much needed analytical space in the discussion of Indian services sectors,
especially professional services. Previous works related to the trade policy aspects
of professional services focus either on the political economy aspects of profes-
sional services or on the technical aspects of trade negotiations. A comprehensive
treatment that investigates the fundamental linkages of domestic regulation,
domestic industry conditions, institutional features and the political economy and
its relation to trade policy and trade negotiations was missing. This work by Rupa
Chanda and Pralok Gupta fills this void, and provides extremely important insights
that extend beyond legal services to other professional services.
The book is even more timely because there has been a growing perception that
Indian professionals in legal and accounting services, among others, are espe-
cially vulnerable to foreign competition, given that the global giants in these sec-
tors hail from Anglo-Saxon countries (i.e., USA and UK), and given that the
commonality of legal and regulatory traditions and the language of India shared
with these economies deprives Indian professionals of even the nominal protection
afforded to their counterparts in Brazil, China or South Korea.
The first two chapters of this book provide a detailed overview of the interna-
tional landscape that defines professional services, and specifically, legal serv-
ices. Chapter 1 fleshes out the various initiatives and dialogues related to
developing a global architecture of regulation of professional services that have
largely been met with resistance from professionals in almost all the countries.
The authors present a balanced view that provides the advantages of national reg-
ulation that is determined by the associations or institutions that represent the
professionals themselves in maintaining standards and accountability, and in
adhering to the specific peculiarities of a particular country. This is balanced by a
discussion on how ‘self ’ regulation can lead to the creation of entry barriers and
provides professionals benefiting from such barriers through increased ‘monopoly’
rents. A key missing piece of this discussion that deserved a slight more detailed
discussion is the relationship between which aspects (or one might argue, which
tasks) within a profession are regulated and through which instruments. For
example, in legal services, the instruments of regulation for representation and
litigation tasks are fundamentally different from the instruments of regulation for
Foreign Trade Review
51(1) 108–111
©2016 Indian Institute of
Foreign Trade
SAGE Publications
sagepub.in/home.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0015732515615266
http://ftr.sagepub.com
To continue reading
Request your trial