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Comment by impendia | Hacker News Reader

So I am not familiar with international law, but a hypothetical --

Suppose some country got sued by an oil company and lost, and the president or prime minister of that country held a press conference, announced that they would not pay the judgment, and instead invited the oil company to go fuck themselves. Using those words, on national TV.

What might plausibly happen next?

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Here’s one thing that could happen next: suits filed to seize the nation’s assets abroad, while the business and others like it leave the nation in question to its own devices. The consequences for the nation are unfortunate as the economy degrades.

Case study: Venezuela. It didn’t go before this specific kind of court that I know of but they totally seized foreign oil companies’ assets. Their tankers, and tankers with their oil aboard, are subject to being impounded in some jurisdictions, to compensate those whose property was taken.

If the oil company is one of the big players, it uses its political sway with OPEC and other major oil producers to ensure that the country doesn't get oil until they beg.

These ISDS entities only have teeth because of international trade agreements. Presumably the country that refused to pay the settlement would be in violation of the trade agreement, and would see immediate sanctions/tariffs.

A country would only see sanctions if it harmed a foreign powerful country. When multinational companies are suing multiple countries, there's no incentive for the countries to sanction each other.

ISDS provides barely-plausible deniability for giveaways from governments to billionaires.

Generally speaking governments, unless bound by treaty (and not even then really) are completely free to ignore the results of (most) lawsuits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_immunity

could be grounds for proposing relevant economic sanctions.

the wisdom of taking this risk comes down to how dependent the sued nation is on broader economic cooperation with the guilty nation.

Ignoring the matter of how it's worded, that sounds like a good way to start a trade war. I'd expect that oil company's "home" country to impose retalliatory tarrifs on products from the country that isn't paying the judgement. (Of course realpolitik considerations would be significant, but I think there's still a decent international consensus that thinks the rule of law is worth defending, even if it's weaker than it was)

If the big oil company is from the US (and on a lesser measure an ally), it is likely the US would threaten that other country with diplomatic and economical sanctions.

Probably wouldn’t have much of a chance at buying oil.

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