17 - The Private Life of Transnational Law

Summary

Jessup’s Transnational Law challenges the state as the sole maker of international law. Nevertheless, the doctrine of transnational law advocated for the disrobing of the newly gained sovereignty in Asia and Africa. American corporate lawyers used transnational law to expand their international commercial arbitration practice. Next, in disputes arising from the expropriations by new states of property acquired from concession contracts investors found transnational law profitable. Effectively, Transnational Law, restoring a colonial status quo, facilitated the post-war internationalization of contracts to develop the law of economic protection of aliens. It wantonly focused far too much on “contracts” forgetting conveniently its “concessional” nature. The doctrine of transnational law grew from the McNair-Lauterpacht School of thought that “exploited ungrudgingly and to the full” the “rules” of “private law for the purpose of the development of international law”. The Suez crisis inaugurated the American lawyer's putting of transnational law into practice.