International Trade and Investment Law Training Course

Duration 10 days 17 modules · 65 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends In-house Legal Counsel, Trade Compliance Manager and others
Fee from USD 2,200 KSh 190,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 9 Nov 2026 Course code SD-L-036

Before you join: Participants should have basic familiarity with contracts, commercial transactions, imports, exports, overseas projects or regulatory compliance.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Cross-border transactions can fail or become unexpectedly costly when commercial teams overlook tariffs, import restrictions, product rules, sanctions, treaty commitments or dispute clauses. Legal, compliance, procurement and investment professionals need to identify the rules that apply to goods, services and investments before contracts are signed, supply routes are chosen or a market-entry decision is approved. They also need to distinguish binding international obligations from domestic implementation measures and commercial risk controls.

This course examines the legal architecture governing international trade and foreign investment. Participants work through World Trade Organization rules, customs valuation, tariff classification, rules of origin, trade remedies, technical regulations, services commitments, intellectual property protections, export controls, economic sanctions and free trade agreements. The investment law strand addresses bilateral investment treaties, standards of treatment, expropriation, investor-state arbitration and the management of political and regulatory risk. Participants learn to read treaty provisions, assess government measures, structure legal research and prepare concise advice for business decision-makers.

Instruction combines short legal briefings with treaty-text analysis, case work, group problem-solving, customs and market-entry simulations, and structured application planning. Cases reflect issues faced by importers, exporters, manufacturers, infrastructure investors, banks, technology firms and public bodies. Throughout the first week, participants assemble a trade-and-investment risk file for a realistic transaction; the second week tests and refines it against regulatory changes, disputes and investment protections. Participants leave with a completed legal risk assessment and advice package that can be adapted to live cross-border projects.

The course is suited to professionals who already work with cross-border commercial activity and need a practical working command of international trade and investment law without undertaking a specialist law degree.

What you will be able to do

  • Interpret WTO treaty provisions using treaty-text, schedules and dispute-report analysis
  • Classify imported goods and assess tariff exposure using the Harmonized System
  • Determine preferential origin under free trade agreement rules of origin
  • Assess customs valuation, import compliance and documentary requirements for cross-border shipments
  • Evaluate trade restrictions against GATT, GATS, TBT and SPS obligations
  • Prepare a trade-remedy risk assessment covering anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguard measures
  • Analyse investment treaty protections and investor-state dispute settlement options
  • Produce a trade and investment legal risk advice package for market entry

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Greater confidence reading WTO agreements, free trade agreements and investment treaties
  • A repeatable method for identifying cross-border legal risks before transaction approval
  • Stronger advice-writing skills for trade, customs and investment decision-makers
  • Practical ability to challenge unsupported tariff, origin and sanctions assumptions
  • A credible foundation for working with external trade counsel and customs specialists

For your organisation

  • Earlier identification of tariff, origin and import-control costs in sourcing decisions
  • More consistent legal review of overseas market-entry and investment proposals
  • Reduced exposure to customs penalties, shipment delays and restricted-party breaches
  • Better evidence for responding to trade-remedy, customs and regulatory inquiries
  • Clearer escalation of treaty, arbitration and political-risk issues to senior management

Course modules

17 modules over 10 days

Participants can map the legal sources governing a cross-border trade or investment decision.

  • Sources of trade law: treaties, domestic measures, contracts and soft law
  • WTO, regional agreements and bilateral treaties within the international legal order
  • Public international law principles governing treaty obligations and state responsibility
  • Distinguishing market-access rights from private contractual rights and remedies
  • Identifying applicable law across goods, services, investment and technology transfers
  • Building an issue map from transaction facts, jurisdictions and affected measures

Participants can interpret trade and investment treaty provisions and support conclusions with authority.

  • Vienna Convention Articles 31 to 33 applied to treaty interpretation
  • Ordinary meaning, context, object and purpose in contested treaty provisions
  • Using annexes, schedules, reservations and protocols to determine commitments
  • Researching WTO materials, treaty databases, awards and national implementing measures
  • Separating binding holdings from persuasive reasoning in international decisions
  • Writing a legally defensible issue-rule-application-conclusion advice note

Participants can assess goods-related measures against core GATT non-discrimination and market-access rules.

  • GATT Articles I and III: most-favoured-nation and national treatment tests
  • Tariff bindings, concessions schedules and prohibited quantitative restrictions under Article XI
  • Border measures distinguished from internal taxes, charges and product regulations
  • Article XX general exceptions analysed through the two-tier legal test
  • Security exceptions and emergency measures under GATT Article XXI
  • WTO dispute reports used to frame goods-trade legal arguments

Participants can identify tariff treatment and customs valuation risks for imported goods.

  • Harmonized System classification using General Rules for Interpretation
  • Tariff schedules, bound rates, applied rates and tariff-rate quotas
  • Transaction value method under the WTO Customs Valuation Agreement
  • Related-party pricing and circumstances of sale in customs valuation
  • Assists, royalties, transport and insurance adjustments to declared customs value
  • Customs rulings, recordkeeping and post-entry audit preparation

Participants can determine whether goods qualify for preferential tariff treatment under an FTA.

  • Non-preferential origin compared with preferential origin for free trade agreements
  • Wholly obtained, substantial transformation and product-specific origin rules
  • Tariff-shift tests, regional value content and specific processing requirements
  • Cumulation provisions and origin treatment of intermediate materials
  • Certificates of origin, origin declarations and supporting supplier evidence
  • Origin verification, denial of preference and corrective action planning

Participants can assess product regulations under TBT and SPS disciplines.

  • TBT Agreement scope: technical regulations, standards and conformity assessment procedures
  • Non-discrimination and unnecessary trade restrictiveness under TBT Article 2.2
  • International standards and legitimate regulatory objectives in technical regulation
  • SPS Agreement disciplines for food safety, animal health and plant health
  • Risk assessment, scientific evidence and precautionary regulatory decisions
  • Labelling, testing and certification barriers documented for legal review

Participants can assess exposure to anti-dumping, countervailing and safeguard actions.

  • Anti-dumping investigations: dumping margin, injury and causation requirements
  • Normal value, export price and constructed value calculations
  • Countervailing duties, financial contributions and actionable subsidy analysis
  • Safeguard measures, serious injury and unforeseen developments requirements
  • Questionnaire responses, verification records and administrative review strategy
  • Commercial responses to provisional duties and final trade-remedy measures

Participants can analyse services market-access barriers and related regulatory commitments.

  • GATS modes of supply applied to cross-border service transactions
  • Schedules of commitments, limitations and reservations affecting market entry
  • Market access and national treatment tests under GATS Articles XVI and XVII
  • Domestic regulation requirements, licensing procedures and professional qualifications
  • Digital trade issues: data flows, localisation and electronic authentication rules
  • Structuring service delivery through branches, subsidiaries and local partners

Participants can identify TRIPS protections and IP risks affecting international commercialisation.

  • TRIPS minimum standards for copyright, trademarks, patents and trade secrets
  • National treatment and most-favoured-nation obligations for intellectual property holders
  • Patentability, compulsory licensing and pharmaceutical access disputes
  • Trademark registration, parallel imports and exhaustion of intellectual property rights
  • Border enforcement measures against counterfeit and pirated goods
  • Technology transfer agreements reviewed for territorial and IP-control risks

Participants can identify export-control and sanctions risks in cross-border transactions.

  • Export controls distinguished from economic sanctions and import prohibitions
  • Restricted-party screening for customers, intermediaries, banks and beneficial owners
  • End-use and end-user controls for dual-use goods and technology
  • Sanctions clauses allocating legal change, termination and payment risks
  • Government licences, voluntary disclosures and internal escalation procedures
  • Documenting screening decisions and red flags for audit evidence

Participants can compare FTA commitments and use them in transaction planning.

  • FTA architecture: goods, services, investment, procurement and dispute settlement chapters
  • Comparing FTA tariff schedules, exclusions and staging categories
  • Rules of origin negotiated differently across overlapping preferential agreements
  • Investment and services reservations interpreted through negative-list schedules
  • Selecting legally available preference routes for a proposed supply chain
  • Monitoring FTA amendments, safeguard actions and withdrawal provisions

Participants can allocate delivery, payment and documentary risks in international sales arrangements.

  • CISG applicability, opt-outs and interaction with domestic sales law
  • Incoterms 2020 rules matched to transport mode and delivery obligations
  • Risk transfer, title clauses and insurance responsibilities in export contracts
  • Documentary credits, demand guarantees and payment-default risk allocation
  • Force majeure and hardship clauses tested against trade disruption scenarios
  • Dispute-resolution clauses selecting courts, arbitration, seat and governing law

Participants can assess whether an overseas investment receives treaty-based protection.

  • Defining protected investments, investors and nationality under bilateral investment treaties
  • Corporate structuring, treaty shopping concerns and denial-of-benefits clauses
  • Fair and equitable treatment claims based on legitimate expectations
  • Full protection and security, national treatment and most-favoured-nation standards
  • Direct and indirect expropriation distinguished from legitimate regulation
  • Transfers, currency controls and umbrella clauses affecting investor rights

Participants can evaluate investor-state dispute options, procedure and remedy exposure.

  • Consent to arbitration through treaties, legislation and investment contracts
  • ICSID Convention jurisdiction, additional facility and UNCITRAL arbitration options
  • Cooling-off periods, local-remedy requirements and fork-in-the-road clauses
  • Jurisdiction, admissibility and merits separated in investor-state proceedings
  • Damages methods: discounted cash flow, comparable transactions and sunk costs
  • Award enforcement, annulment and set-aside risks under applicable regimes

Participants can formulate a legally grounded response to adverse state measures.

  • Regulatory change, licence withdrawal and taxation measures assessed for treaty breach
  • Contemporaneous records supporting reliance, loss and causation arguments
  • Government engagement, diplomatic channels and formal dispute escalation choices
  • Mediation and negotiated settlement options before arbitration commences
  • Parallel trade, contract and investment claims coordinated without inconsistency
  • Board reporting of legal exposure, remedies, cost and timeline assumptions

Participants can design proportionate controls for recurring international trade and investment risks.

  • Risk-based compliance framework linking transactions, controls, owners and evidence
  • Trade compliance policies covering classification, origin, valuation and screening
  • Approval matrices for high-risk markets, counterparties and government measures
  • Supplier questionnaires and contractual representations supporting origin claims
  • Internal investigations for customs errors, sanctions concerns and reporting decisions
  • Legal horizon scanning for tariff changes, treaty developments and regulatory reforms

Participants can build, review and present a complete trade and investment legal advice package for a proposed cross-border market-entry transaction.

  • Define transaction facts, jurisdictions, goods, services, investors and counterparties
  • Map applicable trade, customs, sanctions, contract and investment law issues
  • Assess tariff, origin, regulatory and market-access exposure using evidence
  • Evaluate treaty protections against identified government and political-risk scenarios
  • Prepare prioritised recommendations, assumptions, controls and escalation triggers
  • Present legal advice to simulated management and defend conclusions

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. Trade and investment legal issue-mapping template
  2. WTO measure-assessment checklist
  3. Customs classification, valuation and origin review worksheet
  4. Free trade agreement preference comparison matrix
  5. Investment treaty protection assessment model
  6. Cross-border legal risk advice package

Who should attend

  • In-house Legal Counsel — advises commercial teams on cross-border contracts, regulations and disputes
  • Trade Compliance Manager — manages import, export, customs and sanctions exposure
  • International Procurement Manager — sources goods internationally and allocates delivery and tariff risks
  • Export Sales Manager — needs legally informed route-to-market and distributor decisions
  • Investment and Project Manager — assesses treaty protection and political risk for overseas assets
  • Government Trade Officer — develops, administers or reviews trade-related measures and agreements

Skills and tools covered

WTO rules analysisCustoms compliance assessmentTreaty interpretationTrade remedies analysisInvestment treaty protectionCross-border risk advice

Tools and standards

WTO Dispute Settlement Understanding, Incoterms 2020, United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, ICSID Convention

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to establish legal rules, followed by treaty-text reading, reported-case analysis and structured group work. Participants assess tariff classifications, origin claims, import restrictions, sanctions scenarios and investment measures using supplied fact patterns. Customs and market-entry simulations test how legal choices affect cost, timing and dispute exposure. Facilitated discussions compare legal arguments from business, government and investor perspectives. Each participant applies the methods to a selected transaction or sector scenario and receives feedback on their final advice package.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have basic familiarity with contracts, commercial transactions, imports, exports, overseas projects or regulatory compliance. They should be comfortable reading business documents and short legal texts, and should understand the difference between domestic law and contractual obligations. Prior legal training is helpful but not required. No previous study of WTO law, customs classification, investment treaties or arbitration is assumed. Participants do not need to be qualified lawyers, economists or customs brokers; the course explains the necessary legal concepts before applying them to realistic decisions.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

Participants need basic familiarity with commercial transactions, imports, exports, regulatory compliance or overseas projects. Prior legal training and prior study of WTO law or investment arbitration are not required.

Bring a laptop for reviewing supplied materials and preparing the final advice package. Participants may also bring a non-confidential transaction, market-entry proposal or compliance issue for application planning.

It suits in-house counsel, trade compliance personnel, procurement and export managers, investment professionals and public-sector trade officers. It is designed for people who need to apply legal rules to business or policy decisions.

Those courses examine individual specialist areas in greater depth. This course connects customs, WTO rules, free trade agreements, trade controls, commercial arrangements and investment treaties into one decision process.

Participants can use the issue maps, checklists and assessment models when reviewing imports, exports, distributor arrangements, overseas investments and regulatory changes. The final advice package provides a format for reporting findings to management or external counsel.

Each training day runs from 08:30 to 16:30 and provides about 6.5 contact hours. The first week establishes trade-law analysis and customs methods, while the second week focuses on investment protection, disputes, compliance controls and the capstone.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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