Changing Social Arrangements in State-Trading States and Their Effect on International Law

Abstract

Just as government-controlled navies came to replace the once predominant privateers, so state responsibility for the conditions of trading has increasingly replaced uncontrolled free trade, both internally and internationally. The extent of this shift in the conditions of international trade is, however, still obscured by the fact that we tend to take note only of the open and obvious changes in the organization of trade, as they occur through the socialization of resources and agencies. Thus, it is obvious that the Soviet Union and the other Communist states conduct all their foreign trade under a general economic plan and through the instrumentality of state-controlled official agencies. But it is less obvious that a vast number of states exercises far-reaching control over the international movements of goods and services from and into their countries through a variety of instrumentalities, such as currency control, tariffs, import quotas, selective permits for the importation of raw materials, and the like. Exporters or investors of the capital-exporting countries are, of course, well aware of the range and complexity of these controls. There is, however, a tendency to identify them with the special conditions prevailing today in the underdeveloped countries-either by virtue of economic necessity, or as a result of their political philosophy blending elements of nationalism and socialism, or a combination of both.