Developments in the Law and Institutions of International Economic Relations

A few years ago expert opinion seemed to be veering sharply toward the conclusion that the multinational enterprise had put national sovereignties “at bay.” As astute an observer as Raymond Vernon was writing that “sovereign states are feeling naked,” that concepts such as national sovereignty and economic strength appeared to be “drained of meaning,” that the consequent sense of “nakedness and dependence” had focussed interest on the “institutions which are thought to be the main agents of the change,” and that prominentamong these was the “multinational enterprise.”