Description:

Join the Colloquium in International Security Studies for a presentation by Aden Knaap, a Henry Chauncey ‘57 Postdoctoral Fellow in the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy. Aden is a historian currently writing a history of international courts, under contract with Princeton University Press. At the Colloquium, he will present his draft journal article, “The Rose Mary Doctrine: Hot Commodities, Cold Nationalizations, and the Legal End of Empire, 1951-1972.”

A secret meeting of some of the world’s largest companies at a pub near Heathrow Airport. A chase scene in which a plane pursues an oil tanker in the Persian Gulf. Trips to glamorous destinations like Rio de Janeiro and Venice and Tokyo. This isn’t the plot of the latest James Bond film but rather episodes from an academic article, “The Rose Mary Doctrine.” It is about how Western corporations sought to stop Third World countries from nationalizing their resources by suing them in various courts, from the 1950s to the 1970s. They named this strategy the Rose Mary Doctrine, after the first shipment of expropriated property that it was successfully deployed against. In this article, I use the Doctrine to tease out the historiographical significance of three things: of law and not just violence in the history of decolonization; of various commodities and not just oil in the history of development; and of litigation and not just arbitration in the history of disputes over foreign investment. This article centers on the corporate lawyers that carried out the Doctrine, who were a lot like 007. But instead of a license to kill, they had a license to sue.

This event is hosted by the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and open to the Yale community. Lunch will be provided. Registered participants will receive the reading materials in advance.