Abstract
This article explores the tension between national sovereignty and international arbitration in investment disputes between underdeveloped states and foreign companies. Against the backdrop of the perceived decline of the socialist system and the New International Economic Order, the author traces how the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources has shaped, and been challenged by, arbitral practice. The first part examines the internal legal order: how recourse to arbitration, originally an act of sovereign will, became an instrument through which foreign investors sought to remove disputes from host-state law, as illustrated by colonial and post-colonial petroleum codes and the Calvo doctrine. The second part analyzes the "internationalisation" of contracts, whereby arbitrators — through theories such as lex contractus, general principles of law, and an international law of contracts — denationalize contractual relations and attach them to an international legal order. The author critically highlights the contradictions of these doctrines, which reflect prevailing North-South power relations.
Recommended Citation
Houfaidi, Jamila
(1990)
"National Sovereignty and International Arbitration,"
Revue Marocaine de Droit, d'Economie et de Gestion (Moroccan Journal of Law, Economics and Management): Vol. 9:
Iss.
2, Article 11.
https://doi.org/10.66499/2665-7112.1639
Available at:
https://scholarhub.univh2c.ma/remadeg/vol9/iss2/11
DOI
10.66499/2665-7112.1639