The Battle Continues

Abstract

In the years following decolonization the divisions between the United States and Latin America became universalized when the newly independent states of Africa and Asia espoused the Calvo Doctrine and the European states, seeking to retain control over their former colonies, adopted the externalization of the foreign investment process. In foreign investment protection decolonization did not destroy the hegemonic structures of imperial international law; the same objectives were achieved more indirectly. International law remains the purveyor of poverty and the instrument of small interest groups in alliance with the elite of the developing world. After decolonization these same objectives continued via more sophisticated structures constructed with rules that overtly seemed justifiable, but covertly ensured an exploitative system. This chapter explores the period between 1955–1975 in which the struggle was between the insulation and externalization of the process and when its subjection to host state sovereignty became clearly entrenched.