Lord Asquith’s 1951 award in the Abu Dhabi arbitration is widely recalled as one of the first reasoned international decisions to apply the “General Principles of Law Recognized by Civilized Nations” to a dispute between a state and a private investor. The award is also widely reviled. Asquith is said to be a racist, and the award an embarrassment, and no other application of general principles has done more to delegitimize the concept. This Article draws on extensive archival research to show that the case exemplifies the ways in which international lawyers act as legal entrepreneurs, investing in the (re)creation of international legal precedent.
