Reciprocity and the Most-Favoured-Nation Clause

NOTHING has been more remarkable in the recent history of commercial policy than the change in the attitude towards the mostfavoured-nation clause as an instrument for regulating international commercial relations. Until I923 the efforts of governments and of unofficial organisations representative in almost every economically developed country of banking, shipping, commercial and, in many countries, of producing interests, were bent towards the establishment of the clause in its unconditional form as the Statue of Liberty for the world's commerce. The consummation of these efforts came, as is well known, with the abandonment in I9231 of the conditional interpretation previously maintained by the Government of the United States of America in its commercial policy from I778 onwards. Although the attitude of the French Government from time to time has shown signs of revolt,2 from I923 onwards the principle of the clause in its unconditional interpretation has been universally accepted, both in declarations of experts of which the most authoritative were the recommendations of the World Economic Conference, I927,3 and of the Economic Committee of the League of Nations in I929,4 and officially in commercial treaties. But between the acceptance of the principle and its full application in practice from the beginning a gulf stretched which has rapidly widened since I929. At periods when the tide of international confidence and economic prosperity is high there appears to be a fair chance of safe and easy navigation, but when the

Abandonment (legal) · Commerce Clause · Economics · Government (linguistics) · Interpretation (philosophy) · League · Political science · Prosperity · Reciprocity (cultural anthropology) · Sociology · International Arbitration and Investment Law · International Law and Aviation · Law

• Circumvention of Most-Favoured-Nation clause by the policy of Imperial Preferences

  Vikramaditya Awasthy•The Journal of Imperial &…•2025

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