Digital Commons Network^™

Blocking And Clawing Back In The Name Of Public Policy: The United Kingdom's Protection Of Private Economic Interests Against Adverse Foreign Adjudications, Michael L. Novicoff

Northwestern Journal of International Law & Business

Like their common law cousins, the courts of the United Kingdom have long claimed the authority to decline recognition to foreign sovereign acts which pose a threat to their nation's public policy. This Article surveys the British cases in which such discretion has been or might have been exercised, and it concludes that the doctrine is no longer applied in the very instances for which it was developed. Instead, it appears that the doctrine is, in its old age, used merely as a pretext for the advancement of British economic interests at the expense of international comity. A new model …