19 - Trade in Old Regime Europe

Summary

In this period, states strove for more control over their international trade routes. However, this was a matter of ideology and planning rather than a reality. Trades were still mainly supervised by chartered companies. States increasingly aimed to restrict exports of their colonial goods to other countries. However, their ‘mercantilist’ approaches did not yield the results that were expected. In attempts to reduce smuggling, private trade became acknowledged more. An aim of consolidating and perfecting colonial trade had more impact in Asia than in the Caribbean. There, geopolitical contexts as well as features of crops precluded strict control. Compared to the previous period, international trade law consisted mostly of treaty law. Some clauses, such as the most-favoured-nation clause, could be opted for in many treaties. Legal borrowing happened, for example, with regard to governance structures in colonial territories, but there was no harmonised law of international trade. Domestic legislation was combined with treaties. Ius gentium doctrine mainly focused on a right of trade. In the later eighteenth century, views of this type were combined with ideas of self-reliance of the economy. Over the course of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, financial markets had become a factor that policy-makers had to take into account. Because of the growing intertwining of state finance, colonial trade and speculation at stock markets, the risk of bubbles rose.