India-France Legal Cooperation,Terming India-France partnership a “lifeline” amidst rising geopolitical tensions, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant has stressed the need for cooperation between the two countries in areas of Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) like arbitration and mediation too.
He was delivering the keynote address at the Indo-French Legal and Business Conference in Paris on the topic, ‘Cross-Border Dispute Resolution: Courts, Arbitration and Mediation and India-France Year of Innovation, 2026.
The CJI said that the relationship between the two nations “has long transcended the purely diplomatic; it is instead a multidimensional architecture encompassing everything from the sanctity of our defence and security cooperation to our shared pursuit of sustainable growth and advanced technologies. This strategic intimacy is mirrored even in our economic vitality.”
He said that India and France “have” also “witnessed a remarkable acceleration in our bilateral trade, which has more than doubled over the last decade, surging from 6.4 billion dollars in 2009-10 to an impressive 15.11 billion dollars in the last fiscal year.”
“Furthermore, the footprint of French enterprise in India is both deep and enduring. France now represents a significant pillar of our foreign investment landscape, contributing over 1.6% of total FDI into India,” he added.
The CJI said that “such remarkable momentum” in bilateral relations also calls for “robust institutional scaffolding” and “what becomes essential…is not the elimination of dispute, but the presence of a credible, efficient, and principled justice delivery mechanism.”
CJI Kant said that what “defines a civilisation—is not the absence of conflict, but the wisdom, restraint, and legitimacy with which conflict is resolved.”
He said that “as India and France look toward the Year of Innovation 2026, the imperative before us is not merely to innovate together, but to institutionalise the trust that such innovation demands. The future of cross-border dispute resolution between our two nations must therefore be shaped by cooperation that is deliberate, structured, and forward-looking.”
The CJI said that “a first and particularly promising avenue lies in the establishment of perhaps joint arbitration and mediation panels, comprising of professionals trained across civil and common law traditions. Such panels would bring not only technical excellence but also the cultural and jurisprudential fluency necessary for resolving disputes that traverse legal systems as seamlessly as they traverse markets.”
He added that “equally vital is the deepening of institutional partnerships between Indian arbitral centres and Paris-based institutions.”
The CJI also called for “sustained judicial and academic exchange” between the two countries.
He said that the cooperation in these areas “can be anchored at the normative level through treaty-linked ADR protocols, embedding mediation and arbitration clauses within bilateral commercial frameworks.”
The CJI added that “the relationship between France and India is not a creation of convenience, it is a bond forged over centuries. Today, standing on the shoulders of this history, we face a world transformed by uncertainty. The forces of disruption and geopolitical tension threaten to destabilise the very framework of international cooperation. In such a world, the France-India partnership is not a luxury, it is a lifeline. United by our shared belief in democracy, the Rule of Law, and the pursuit of a peaceful and just global order, our nations possess complementary strengths.”
