Revolution and Counterrevolution
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Published:September 2024
This chapter examines the weakening of the act of state doctrine in response to Cuban nationalizations of US private property after the Cuban Revolution. The right to nationalize property was at the heart of many Third World efforts to regain control of national resources in the 1960s and 1970s. Although nationalizations are still legally defined as public, sovereign acts in US law, the Cuban nationalizations eventually spurred the adoption of a (partial) common law commercial exception to the act of state doctrine and the redefinition of what we could call nationalization-adjacent activities as private and commercial. Together with bilateral investment treaties and international arbitration, these domestic US legal changes reduced the usefulness of nationalizations for all Third World states. The restriction of the act of state doctrine, which concerns the acts of foreign sovereigns in their own territory, had significant implications for redefining national territorial sovereignty.