5 - Sovereign Commerce

Summary

While politicians, scholars, and lawyers argued about whether individuals ought to be subjects of international law and bear rights within the international order, commercial organizations, like the International Chamber of Commerce, began to advocate for the protection of property and investments at the international level. Investors, they argued, ought to be able to hale a state before a neutral tribunal in order to defend their property rights. While refugees did not have access to international courts or tribunals to defend their rights in the interwar period, commercial organizations increasingly did.