What can public international law do against privatisation?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Privatisation is a challenge for international law. Against this background, this article purports to identify a minimal ‘international public law’. Based on an account of publicness defended in the first section, the article’s second section explains how, although the ‘public’ had only been a reference in passing in the early law of peoples, an international law ‘of the public’ has gradually developed since the nineteenth century. As discussed in the third section, however, that public dimension has never been very strong, and may even be considered a vector of public/private hybridisation. In response, the article’s fourth section identifies the rights of States and other public institutions which may not be conferred to private persons and whose interpretation could be strengthened, while its fourth section turns to the States’ and other public institutions’ obligations that, when duly applied, set limits on the private exercise of these rights.