Schropp, supra note 5, p. 60.

 Mavroidis, supra note 6, p. 255; see Schropp, supra note 5, pp. 70–2.

 Schropp, supra note 5, p. 61 (“Thus, all contracts known today are incomplete. They contain gaps, that is, they are insufficiently contingent and (in a strictly technical sense) inaccurately written.”); see van Aaken, supra note 5, p. 519.

 van Aaken, supra note 5, pp. 515–517. Thus, van Aaken concluded that “optimal contracting and the calculus of the joint costs and benefits for the parties reaching into the future can be taken into account by discounting the future payoffs.” She added, “[a] balance needs to be found between commitment and flexibility with the following goals of the contract in mind: securing a high level of cooperation ex ante, distinction between (desired) flexibility in relation to new circumstances on the one hand and cases of purely opportunistic breach of the contract ex post on the other and adequate compensation for the victim.” ibid. The terms ‘ex post’ and ‘ex ante’ refer to the conclusion of a treaty. Ex ante refers to time in advance of signing an agreement, whereas ex post refers to events after the conclusion of the agreement.

 McClure, supra note 15, p. 85.

 Clavin, supra note 23, p. 5.

 Clavin and Wessels, supra note 27, p. 467.

 McClure, supra note 15, p. 102.

 Clavin and Wessels, supra note 27, p. 471.

 Clavin and Wessels, supra note 27, p. 472.

 Irwin, supra note 4, p. 323; see League of Nations Economic Committee, Equality of Treatment in the Present State of International Commercial Relations The Most-Favoured-Nation Clause, League of Nations, II Economic and Financial, Doc. C.379.M.250.1936.II.B (12 September 1936) 6; see Americo Beviglia Zampetti, Fairness in the World Economy (Edward Elgar 2006) 77.

 Irwin, supra note 4, p. 323.

 Pomfret, supra note 42, p. 20.

 Clavin, supra note 23, p. 5.

 League of Nations, supra note 4, p. 23; see Zampetti, supra note 41, p. 73.

 McClure, supra note 15, p. 85, citing Minutes (English), Preliminary Peace Conference, Commission on the League of Nations, p. 2.

 McClure, supra note 15, pp. 91–92. McClure reported that President Wilson actually incorporated the “policy of the open door, or equal economic opportunity for all” from General Smuts, who had been discussing this policy in the context of not completely independent States, when speaking out for former Russian, Austrian and Turkish territories and their right of self-determination.

 Rappard, supra note 55, p. 10.

 Miller, supra note 69, vol. 1, p. 21. Under Article 22 of the Covenant, “equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of other Members of the League were also guaranteed.”

 McClure, supra note 15, p. 97.

 In 1922, the Economic Committee was first asked to explore the definition and application of ‘equitable treatment’ and it reported that “in view of the wide divergencies of opinion between different States, especially as to the conditions which would justify special treatment,” it saw “no reasonable prospects in existing circumstances, particularly in view of the disorder in the currencies and the disorganisation of the international exchanges, of arriving at a general international convention covering the subject as a whole.” Martin Hill, The Economic and Financial Organization of the League of Nations: A Survey of Twenty-five Years’ Experience (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 1946) 37, citing League of Nations, Official Journal, June 1922, p. 625; see Clavin and Wessels, supra note 27, p. 470 (explaining that the ‘vague reference’ made in Article 23 was “not so much an oversight” as it was “a reflection of continued international tensions”).

 Miller, supra note 69, vol. 1, p. 21. William Rappard noted that it was too difficult to square “the British imperial preference, reciprocity treaties and the case of China.” Rappard, supra note 55, p. 11.

 Miller, supra note 69, vol. 1, p. 21.

 Rappard, supra note 55, p. 12.

 Covenant, supra note 24, article 23; see supra note 4.

 Pasvolsky, supra note 50, p. 4.

 Rappard, supra note 55, p. 66. See Economic Financial and Transit Department League of Nations, supra note 1, p. 16 (“In the great majority of countries represented [at the Paris conference], there was no disposition at the time to limit national freedom of action in regard to trade policy.”)

 ‘The Background’, supra note 96, p. 3. By 1927, most countries had returned to the gold standard.

 Clavin, supra note 23, p. 25.

 Pasvolsky, supra note 50, p. 4.

 Rappard, supra note 55, pp. 50–61; See Hill, supra note 76, p. 55.

 Clavin and Wessels, supra note 27, p. 470; see Clavin, supra note 23, p. 13; see Chase, supra note 100, pp. 180–1.

 Hill, supra note 76, p. 37; see League of Nations Economic Committee, supra note 41, p. 5.

 Hill, supra note 76, p. 40.

 Clavin, supra note 23, p. 44. For example, the USSR and Germany, frustrated by their ‘pariah status’ at the Genoa conference in 1922, took steps to restore diplomatic and trade relations and signed the Rapallo Treaty on 16 April 1922. The bilateral action of these two ideologically opposed powers stood out from the “wider breakdown of multilateral negotiations” between States with shared aims and ambitions. Ibid., pp. 23–24.

 Pasvolsky, supra note 50, p. 4.

 Clavin, supra note 23, p. 18. See Pasvolsky, supra note 50, p. 4.

 Pasvolsky, supra note 50, p. 4.

 Clavin, supra note 23, p. 12.

 Stewart, supra note 96, p. 74.

 Hill, supra note 76, p. 39.

 Clavin, supra note 23, p. 21.

 Clavin and Wessels, supra note 27, p. 472. Independent experts were seconded to the Sections following “informal, behind-the-scenes negotiations” between the officials of sections and the primary governments of the League Member States. See Clavin, supra note 23, p. 21.

 Clavin, supra note 23, p. 42.

 Stewart, supra note 96, p. 70.

 Clavin, supra note 23, p. 43.

 Clavin, supra note 23, p. 43.

 Pasvolsky, supra note 50, p. 6.

 ‘The Background’, supra note 96, p. 5.

 Pasvolsky, supra note 50, p. 70.

 Clavin, supra note 23, pp. 101–102, citing Note by Pietro Stoppani, ‘First Reflections on the Preparatory Commission’s Task in Regard to International Trade’, Doc. R.2671, 10A/39755/38756 (26 October 1932) 18.

 Clavin, supra note 23, p. 107.

 Pasvolsky, supra note 50, p. 10.

 Clavin, supra note 23, pp. 119–121. See Patricia Clavin, ‘The World Economic Conference 1933: The Failure of British Internationalism’ (1991) 20 J. Euro. Econ. Hist. 489, 500–506.

 Clavin, supra note 147, p. 495. Britain’s demands included: a settlement of war debts; “an agreement on monetary policy involving legislation to give central banks in France and the United States wider powers coupled with assurances that these powers would secure a rise in the price level; some form of settlement which would produce a redistribution of gold;” and modifications to other State’s protectionist policies, especially those of the United States and France.

 Stewart, supra note 131, p. 70.

 Clavin, supra note 23, pp. 97–99.

 Clavin and Wessels, supra note 27, p. 482 (describing the League Secretariat’s concern with international protectionism and their interest in “policy co-ordination between the world’s great democracies.”).

 Clavin, supra note 23, pp. 97–99.

 Clavin, supra note 147, p. 519. On 1 July, President Roosevelt had issued his ‘bombshell’ message from his yacht, Amberjack in “denouncing the ‘old fetishes of so-called international bankers’.”

 Stewart, supra note 131, p. 200.

 Clavin, supra note 147, p. 526.

 Clavin and Wessels, supra note 27, pp. 482–483; see Stewart, supra note 96, p. 80.

 Hill, supra note 76, pp. 55–56.

 Tasca, supra note 168, p. 246 (noting also that “any governmental measure or regulation, irrespective of its nature which impedes in any fashion the movement of commodities across national frontiers is protective to the extent that trade is discouraged.”).

 Tasca, supra note 168, p. 247.

 Lester and Durling, supra note 164, p. 219.

 Tasca, supra note 168, p. 247.

 In May 1928, the League’s Economic Consultative Committee was set up to monitor the progress in applying the resolutions of the World Economic Conference.

 Eastman, supra note 187, p. 1.

 Trendelenburg, supra note 194, p. 6.

 McClure, supra note 15, p. 405.

 Hill, supra note 76, p. 65.

 League of Nations Secretariat, supra note 216, p. 2.

 League of Nations, supra note 183, arts. 4–6. Article 4 provided that the Contracting States agree not to enforce any Customs regulations which have not previously been published. Article 5 required that all duties, tariffs and other charges be promptly published “in a complete statement, in an easily accessible form.” Article 6 required that all measures referred to in Articles 4 and 5 were communicated to the Secretariat and published with the International Office for the Publication of Customs Tariffs.

 League of Nations, supra note 216, p. 1.

 German Delegation, supra note 233.

 Nielsen, supra note 260. Within the letter, Nielsen mentioned a memorandum of his oral remarks indicating the position of the US delegation regarding the ‘equitable treatment’ clause. Current research is being undertaken to find this memorandum.

 Nielsen, supra note 256, p. 263.

 Nielsen, supra note 256, p. 263.

 Tasca, supra note 168, p. 248.

 Weiler, supra note 18, p. xliv.

 United States Delegation, supra note 257.

 League Secretariat, supra note 216.

 Lang, supra note 98, p. 200-1.

 Weiler, supra note 18, pp. 184–9. Rather than rely on the practice where FET may be traced to ‘equitable treatment for the commerce’ in the League Covenant (see supra note 24), Todd Weiler has argued that the FET clause can be traced back to these ‘applicable law’ provisions that established hundreds of mixed claims commissions’ from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. Reflecting on this possible origin for the FET clause, Paparinskis observed with respect to ‘applicable law’ clauses that a “reading of these authorities would find the unifying element in the looseness and flexibility of the criteria, at its weakest introducing flexibility within the law and at its strongest providing for extra-legal discretion.” Paparinskis, supra note 18, p. 88. As discussed in the concluding section, this author tentatively theorizes connections between the FET clause and the trade-derived ‘equitable treatment’ clause. This theory will be the focus of future work.

 Hudec, supra note 276, p. 20.

 Nielsen, supra note 260, pp. 3–4.

 Hudec, supra note 276, p. 20.

 Lauterpacht, supra note 278, p. 3.

 Hudec, supra note 276, p. 26. Hudec observed that a delegate from the United Kingdom had argued that “[T]he law of the International Trade Organization should be dynamic, and should be open to amendment and addition in the light of experience in this new field of international activity.… In almost every conceivable case arising under the Charter, the issues will be of their nature involve the element of economic appraisal and assessment and will not be purely legal in character, and it will be impossible to say where economic judgment ends and legal judgment begins.” See R.J. Shackle, Article 86 - Summary of Points Made By Mr. Shackle Regarding Interpretation and Sattlement of Disputes, U.N. Doc. E/PC/T/C6/W77 (14 February 1947) 2.

 Hudec, supra note 276, p. 21, citing League of Nations, Procedures for the Friendly Settlement of Economic Disputes between States, Doc. Conf. C.57.M.32.1932.II.B (1932) 4.

 United States Delegation, supra note 257.

 In 1948, Schwarzenberger observed that the importance of the “standard of equitable treatment” “lies in spheres affected by an increase in State planning. It also provides the only solution in cases in which currency disequilibrium or changes in the structure of national economics force States to adopt measures of quantitative restriction of imports. … [T]his standard provides the only means … of achieving an at least proportionate equality between foreign States.” Schwarzenberger, supra note 4, p. 411.

 Irwin, supra note 4, p. 323–324. A majority of the Economic Committee’s work was driven by the desire to equalize international commerce and stop the “outbreak of even greater protectionism supplemented by discriminatory trade and currency blocs.” Ibid., p. 324; see supra note 4; see also Schwarzenberger, supra note 4, p. 403 (observing that the ‘turning point’ was the “disequilibrium caused by the war, the problems of reparations and inter-Allied debts, the growth of economic nationalism and protection”).

 Hudec, supra note 276, p. 20.

 Lauterpacht, supra note 278, p. 66.

 Lester and Durling, supra note 174, p. 222.

 Staiger and Sykes, supra note 276, pp. 16–17.

 Petersmann, supra note 276, p. 172. See Andrew D. Mitchell, Legal Principles in WTO Disputes (CUP 2008) 90 (concurring with Petersmann’s argument). Article XXIII:1b provides “If any contracting party should consider that any benefit accruing to it directly or indirectly under this Agreement is being nullified or impaired or that the attainment of any objective of the Agreement is being impeded as the result of … the applicable by another contracting party of any measure, whether or not it conflicts with the provisions of this Agreement ….” GATT 1947, supra note 276.

 Nielsen, supra note 260, p. 5.

 Petersmann, supra note 276, p. 144. This was emphasized by the delegate from Australia, Dr Coombs, a supporter of the non-violation ‘nullification or impairment’ concept, who explained that the word ‘benefits’ was understood “in a very wide sense.” He stated: “I should like to emphasise that by the word ‘benefits’ we conceive not merely benefits accorded for instance, under the provisions of Article 24 [referring to tariff concessions], but the benefits which other countries derive from the acceptance of the wider obligations imposed by the Charter.” Verbatim Report of the Preparatory Committee of the International Conference on Trade and Employment, U.N.ESCOR Twelfth meeting. U.N. Doc. E/PC/T/C.II/PV/12 (1946) 7.

 Berman, supra note 2, p. 19.

 Clavin, supra note 23, p. 122.

 Hudec, supra note 276, p. 34. Professor Hudec explained that ‘an artistic use of ambiguity’ meant: “At times it seems to represent a deliberate policy to avoid stating even the simplest of ideas clearly and without qualification. On the other hand, one also gets the impression that even the most subtle of these nuances are thought to have much more significance than the black-letter lawyer would ever dream of giving them.”

 van Aaken, supra note 5, p. 528, citing to Susan Franck’s empirically analysis of investor-State cases; Franck found that the win rate of investors is at about half. Susan D. Franck, ‘Empirically Evaluating Claims about Investment Treaty Arbitration’ (2007–2008) 86 N. C. L. Rev. 1, 48 et seq.

 Staiger and Sykes, supra note 276, p. 1.