DIY: coding value in international investment law1

Andrea Leiter

Chapter 16 in Research Handbook on Law and Political Economy, 2025, pp 260-269 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter traces the early legal practices of international investment law through the lens of oil concession agreements, focusing on the foundational role of the Red Line Agreement and the figure of Calouste Gulbenkian. Drawing on early 20th century arbitrations and the writings of key legal scholars, it shows how international law was instrumental in coding value and institutionalising a system of risk hedging for foreign capital as a self-authorising regime. Rather than emerging in the 1950s, it took shape through colonial and imperial legal entanglements across the interwar period. The chapter reveals how doctrines like Kompetenz-Kompetenz and the standing of corporations under international law naturalised private control over natural resources, entrenching inequality long before the formal battles over permanent sovereignty over national resources took place.

Keywords: International investment law; Concession agreements; Acquired rights; Arbitration; Oil; Sovereignty (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781803921181
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