From international to comparative private law, from foundational frameworks to new technologies, this comprehensive Master prepares students for a variety of careers in the field. Take advantage of a unique partnership of institutions, academics and legal professionals to grip the complexity of the laws of global trade.
Learn by doing, through case studies, workshops, and group exercises
Exchange ideas with international students and faculty
Engage with experts from the ILO and other international organizations
This Master aims to provide participants with an in-depth understanding of the main legal issues concerning international commercial contracts, from contract drafting to dispute resolution, with emphasis on recent developments and the increasing complexity of contract law, including the impact of new technologies and the role of compliance for MNEs. It also covers the key international institutional and legal frameworks for international trade and investment, and incorporates a dedicated module on international dispute settlement, international commercial arbitration and transnational domestic litigation.
This Master has been designed for recent university graduates who intend to work in the field of international trade law, for example in law firms, corporate legal departments, governments, international organizations, and academic or research institutions. Law consultants, practitioners, and young managers wishing to expand their knowledge in the field of international trade law would also benefit.
From 1991 to 2010 the International Training Centre of the ILO, the University of Turin, and the University Institute of European Studies (IUSE), in collaboration with other world-class universities, offered a shortened version of this Master as a postgraduate course in international trade law.
It was expanded and upgraded to a Master of Laws in International Trade in 2010-2011. This decision was taken in recognition of the increasing demand for higher levels of legal specialization and career development in the field of international trade, and coincided with the decision to establish the Turin School of Development as a unique mechanism for the delivery of joint UN-academic Masters.
UNCITRAL – a historical partner – endorsed the new Master and accepted the status of a full partner in 2010 while UNIDROIT joined the Master as a partner in 2019.
In addition, international organizations such as WTO, UNCTAD, EU, and ICC, as well as renowned universities, have played an important role in the Master and delegated officials and faculty members respectively to join the Scientific Committee and/or to participate in Master delivery.
Students gain the fundamental tools and competencies needed to handle the complexities of international commercial transactions.
During this first phase, while being trained on perspectives, actors and sources of international trade, students will be given basic or more in-depth knowledge on issues, which will be covered in or will be complementary to the Face-to-Face Phase, respectively.
During this phase, participants will have access to an on-line platform, through which they will be given the materials, send their assignments and interact in forums as a class, while receiving advisory support from a dedicated tutor. Assessment will be carried out on a regular basis and upon arrival in Turin.
During this second phase, students will learn in class, as well as through individual study and group work. Participation in classes is compulsory; classes are held every day from Monday to Friday from 9 am to 3.30 pm.
Subjects include: comparative contract law, harmonization of private law, aspects relating to international commercial contracts such as the CISG, UPICC, carriage of goods, IPRs and technology, e-commerce, insurance law, state contracts; relevant trade-related institutions, international trade and investment law, trade and competition, trade and IPRs; and international dispute settlement, arbitration systems and ADR, transnational domestic litigation.
This third phase consists of the submission of a final essay or a case analysis by October 2023 (30 pages approximately), supervised by an advisor and by the scientific coordinators.
The Master is structured in three parts: online learning, residential classes, and an individual paper.
This intensive, year-long Master combines online and residential work for students at different stages of their careers.
Students learn by studying, collaborating, and observing practitioners in action.
The core faculty of the Master is composed of:
The combination of academic resource persons and legal practitioners is a distinctive feature of this Master which enables smooth integration of theory with practice.
Participants will benefit from the support and involvement of Module coordinators and dedicated tutors who will assist and advise them throughout the learning period.
Gianmaria AJANI
Professor of Comparative private law, UniTo
Roberto CARANTA
Professor of Administrative Law, UniTo
Giuseppe CASALE
Director, Turin School of Development Director, ITCILO
Luca CASTELLANI
Legal officer, UNCITRAL
Mario COMBA
Professor of Comparative public law, UniTo
Elena D’ALESSANDRO
Full Professor of Civil Procedure, Univeristy of Turin
Silvia FERRERI
Full Professor of Comparative Private Law, University of Turin
Elena GILARDI
Research Fellow, IUSE
Lorenza MOLA
Professor of International law - UniTo
Alberto ODDENINO
Professor of International law, UniTo
Cristina PONCIBÒ
Professor of Comparative private law, UniTo
Pierre TERCIER
Emeritus Professor, University of Fribourg, Switzerland; Honorary Chairman, ICC International Court of Arbitration
Anna VENEZIANO
Deputy Director, UNIDROIT
Franz WERRO
Professor of Law, University of Fribourg-Switzerland and Georgetown University Law Centre-United States
Andrea Piletta Massaro
Andrea received his degree in law summa cum laude, with academic distinction, from the University of Turin with a final dissertation titled 'Competition Defence, Private Enforcement Tools: Are They Effective?'.
Since then, he collaborated as trainee lawyer in the Global Transactions department of the international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP's Milan office. He also worked as law clerk at the Turin Court of Appeal. He is admitted to the Italian bar.
Now he is a PhD candidate at the University of Trento, with a dissertation about the reforms needed in competition law vis-à-vis digitalisation, with a specific focus on the goals of antitrust rules. He also works as teaching assistant in both the Universities of Turin and Trento. In particular, he is involved in the Private Law, Comparative Law, EU Competition Law and EU Law courses.
He published articles in the fields of private comparative law and competition law, and he spoke at various conferences. His areas of interest are the impact of digitalisation and the green transition on competition law, private enforcement of competition law and collective redress.
International public law: prof. Lorenza Mola
Lorenza Mola has been the Scientific Director of the Master of Law in International Trade Law since the academic year 2018-2019 and was on the board of coordinators in the previous four editions of the Master. Lorenza is an Associate Professor of International Law at the University of Turin, Department of Law, where she teaches international and EU law, and where she is a member of the board of the PhD in Law, the Individual and the Market. Lorenza holds a PhD in International Economic Law from “Bocconi” University (Milan) and an M.Sc. in European Studies (External Relations) from the Institut d’Etudes Européennes of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She has authored a book on national security in international investment law (2010, in Italian) and published extensively in Italian and international scientific journals and edited books; her current research fields are in international economic law, international human rights law, and the law of EU external relations.
International contracts: prof. Cristina Poncibò
Cristina Poncibò is Professor of Comparative Private Law at the Law Department of the University of Turin, Italy and Visiting Professor at the Georgetown Law Center for Transnational Legal Studies in London. She is Fellow of the Transatlantic Technology Law Forum (Stanford Law School and Vienna School of Law). She teaches Comparative Law, Contracts, EU Competition Law, and Blockchain and the Law. Her most recent edited books include: Contracting and Contract Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (Hart, 2021, forthcoming, with M. Ebers and M. Zou) and The Cambridge Handbook of Smart Contracts, Blockchain Technology and Digital Platforms (Cambridge University Press, 2019, with L. Matteo and M. Cannarsa).
Cristina is a member of the International Association of Comparative Law and Delegate of the Law Department (sponsor institution) to the American Association of Comparative Law. She is also a member of ELI, Juris Diversitas and the Law & Society Association. She regularly acts as an expert for European institutions and international organizations and she is a coordinator of the Master in International Trade Law, co-organised with ITC-ILO, in cooperation with Unicitral and Unidroit. Cristina is a graduate of the University of Turin (MA) and Florence (PhD) and was an associate in an international law firm in the city of London and an intern in the Italian Competition Authority. In her career, she has been a Marie Curie IEF Fellow (Université Panthéon-Assas) and a Max Weber Fellow (EUI).
Arbitration and ADR: prof. Elena D’Alessandro
Elena D’Alessandro is full professor of European and Italian Civil Procedure at the University of Turin, Law Department. She obtained a Ph. D. in Civil Procedure at the University “La Sapienza” Rome (2004), a fellowship of the Alexander VonHumboldt Foundation (2009) and a fellowship of the German DAAD (2011-2012, 2013).
She has been visiting professor at the University of Bielefeld (2010) and Heidelberg (2011, DAAD Heidelberg Program zur Förderung internationales Gastwissenschaftlerinnen und Gastwissenschaftler) and visiting scholar at Queen Mary Law School, Columbia Law School, McGill School of Law, Max Planck Institute for Private International Law and Comparative Law and Max Planck Institute for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law. In the Fall semester 2019 she has been co-director of the Center for Transnational Legal Studies (London).
She is currently coordinating the EU DG Justice Project named “LAWtrain (JUST-JTRA-EJTR-AG-2017).
Her main research interests concern Transnational Litigation and European Civil Procedure.
The tuition fee is set at €9,000.
The fee includes:
Board, lodging, travel expenses, transports and personal expenses for the period in Turin are not included in the cost of participation.
The cost of accommodation (bed and breakfast) at the ITCILO campus during residential face-to-face part of the Master is €55 per nigh
However students may seek off-campus accommodation like in university residences where the rent is appreciably lower and is in the range of €400-600 per month (without laundry and food) or in private apartments.
Applicants interested in participating to this Master should complete and submit the application form by clicking on APPLY in the left upper corner of this page not later than 22 September 2023.
Important: only complete application forms will be considered during the candidate selection process.
For more information on the Master, please contact the course secretariat.
Applicants must have successfully completed a first level university degree of at least 3 years’ duration in law, economics, political sciences, business administration or equivalent.
The validity of non-Italian degrees must be recognized under Italian law and regulations.
The Master is entirely delivered in English. Knowledge of the English language is a pre-requisite and must be proven in the application form with supporting documents.
A limited number of partial fellowships may become available from sponsors in order to facilitate the participation of deserving candidates from developing and transition countries who are unable to meet the full tuition fees.
Participants are therefore expected to finance their participation as much as possible. The admission criteria will take into consideration the participant’s self-financing potential as well as his/her educational and professional profiles. In the application form, participants are kindly requested to indicate the portion of the tuition fees that they are able to finance.
The payment schedule for the Masters’ Programme is as follows:
The individual participation fees are payable in full and all related bank charges (bank of origin, correspondent bank and recipient bank) shall be entirely borne by the participant or the sponsoring institution(s).
If a full or partial balance is still outstanding by the last day of the Master, the Activity Manager will not provide the participant with the relevant university degree until full payment has been received.
Cancellation of participation in the Masters’ Programme will result in the following penalties:
According to the Italian University System, there are two types of Masters: 1st level master and 2nd level master.
The only difference between them is the minimum educational background and academic qualification requirements to be enrolled in these masters: to be enrolled on a 1st level Master's, the minimum requirement is a bachelor degree (3 years); while for a 2nd level Master, the minimum requirement is a post-graduate degree (3 +2 years).
Therefore, pursuing our 1st level Master in International Trade Law, a first level master diploma will be awarded.
A First Level Master does not give access to PhD programmes. Admission requirements to PhD programmes vary from country to country, as these depend on the university system of the country where the PhD programme is held. For more information on the minimum requisites required, please directly contact the university offering the PhD programme you are interested in. As a general rule, for instance, a three-year bachelor's degree plus a first level master’s degree are not considered sufficient for doctoral studies at the University of Turin: both a bachelor’s and a two-year master's degree (second level) are usually required.
You should attach the documents requested in the Supporting Documents section of the on-line application form. Official documents should be scanned and uploaded. The compulsory documents include a copy of:
Important: The application form will be considered only if supported by the above listed documents.
You are expected to submit your application form not later than the 23 September 2022. Early applications are encouraged as eligible candidates will be accepted on "first come first served" basis. Applications will be reviewed by the Scientific Committee on regular basis and feedback will be provided within one month.
The selection criteria take into consideration candidates' education and professional profile as well as their self-financial potential.
According to ITCILO rules, accommodation is covered from the day before the beginning of the course and to the day after the end of the course.
Any exception to the rule above should be approved by the Programme Manager.
No, this Master includes a residential phase of 14 weeks. Attendance to this residential phase is compulsory, from Monday to Friday from 9 am to 3.30 pm.
No. During the residential part in Turin, you can decide to stay outside the ITCILO campus. However, we would recommend to look for a place not far from the campus because the training sessions start at 9 AM every day.
The cost of accommodation and subsistence during the residential phase in our facilities payable in advance by the participant or his/her sponsoring organization.
The accommodation includes a single bedroom, laundry service and breakfast on the ITCILO Campus during the residential phase.
You can take a virtual tour of the ITCILO campus here: https://campuslife.itcilo.org/virtual-tour
For general information on requirements, application, fees, accommodation, scholarships and diploma, please contact:
Course Secretariat
Master in International Trade Law
International Training Centre of the ILO
Viale Maestri del Lavoro, 10
10127 Turin, Italy
Phone: +39 011 69 36 798
e-mail: tradelaw@itcilo.org