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Full-Text Articles in Law
Odious Debt Wears Two Faces: Systemic Illegitimacy, Problems, And Opportunities In Traditional Odious Debt Conceptions In Globalized Economic Regimes, Larry Catá Backer
Odious Debt Wears Two Faces: Systemic Illegitimacy, Problems, And Opportunities In Traditional Odious Debt Conceptions In Globalized Economic Regimes, Larry Catá Backer
Law and Contemporary Problems
Backer examines how the traditional notion of odious debt as a method of repudiating sovereign debt may undergo a conceptual revolution as it changes focus from the illegitimacy of governments obtaining loans to the illegitimacy of the systems through which such loans are made and enforced generally. He focus his analysis on the conceptual framework Fidel Castro sought to introduce into the debate about the legitimacy of sovereign debt and the extent to which this reframing might influence international institutional approaches.
The Odious Debt Doctrine After Iraq, Jai Damle
The Odious Debt Doctrine After Iraq, Jai Damle
Law and Contemporary Problems
The odious debt doctrine has experienced renewed popularity in the past few years; it has been heralded by academics, political commentators, economists, and politicians as a mechanism to alleviate burdens imposed by illegitimate rulers. In its classic formulation, the doctrine provides that a regime's debt is odious, and thus unenforceable, if the state's people did not consent to the debt, the proceeds from the debt were not used for the benefit of the people, and the regime's creditors had knowledge of the first two conditions. In 2003, the newly instated Iraqi regime began negotiations to restructure that country's debt, much …
Odious Debts Or Odious Regimes, Patrick Bolton, David Skeel
Odious Debts Or Odious Regimes, Patrick Bolton, David Skeel
Law and Contemporary Problems
Odious regimes have always been there. That there is no silver-bullet solution that will prevent odious regimes from arising, or stymie them once they do, is evident from the plethora of responses employed by the international community once a regime's odiousness becomes clear. Current odious debt doctrine dates back to a 1927 treatise by a wandering Russian academic named Alexander Sack. The Sack definition contemplates a debt-by-debt approach to questionable borrowing. If a loan is used to benefit the population--to build a highway or water-treatment plant, for instance--the obligation would be fully enforceable, no matter how pernicious the borrower regime. …
Partially Odious Debts?, Omri Ben-Shahar, Mitu Gulati
Partially Odious Debts?, Omri Ben-Shahar, Mitu Gulati
Law and Contemporary Problems
Ben-Shahar borrows from a rich private-law tradition to explore the treatment of odious debt as a problem analogous to allocation of liability in private law. Drawing on the economic analysis of private law, it develops insights as to the structure of an optimal liability scheme. Under this approach, liability is imposed not on the basis of some intrinsic judgment as to the parties' relative blameworthiness, but rather in a forward-looking fashion, on parties who are best suited to take actions to prevent the loss. In addition, liability is imposed on a magnitude tailored to induce an optimal level of precautionary …
Odious Debt, Old And New: The Legal Intellectual History Of An Idea, James V. Feinerman
Odious Debt, Old And New: The Legal Intellectual History Of An Idea, James V. Feinerman
Law and Contemporary Problems
In a sense, all debts are odious; that is, to use dictionary definitions, "hateful; disgusting; offensive." Yet insofar as international economic law today is concerned, only a certain few debts can be considered "odious debts" in order to contest and perhaps eventually to repudiate them. Here, Feinerman examines the concepts of odious debt and related international legal phenomena, in both historical and contemporary context, with a view of determining the role that denomination of certain debts as odious may play in the overall process of sovereign debt rescheduling.
Odious, Not Debt, Anna Gelpern
Odious, Not Debt, Anna Gelpern
Law and Contemporary Problems
The US invasion of Iraq in 2003 revived public and academic debate about a wobbly old doctrine of international law: the Doctrine of Odious Debt. This doctrine allows governments to disavow debts incurred by their predecessors without the consent of or benefit for the people, provided creditors knew of the taint. It has roots in nineteenth century jostles over colonial possessions. However, for the past eighty years, Odious Debt's rhetorical appeal has vastly outstripped its "legal vitality." Here, Gelpern argues that the Doctrine of Odious Debt frames the problem of odious debt in a way that excludes a large number, …
Odious Debt, Odious Credit, Economic Development, And Democratization, Tom Ginsburg, Thomas S. Ulen
Odious Debt, Odious Credit, Economic Development, And Democratization, Tom Ginsburg, Thomas S. Ulen
Law and Contemporary Problems
When a country signs an international treaty, it is not the government but the state that is bound, and the obligation will stand until a subsequent government formally exits the treaty. Exit is presumed to be costly: a government that "repudiates" earlier treaty obligations will suffer reputational harm in its international relations. Moreover, this general background norm of international law applies as well to debt: a government can announce that it is renouncing debt, but it will suffer severe reputational harm in the debt marketplace, much as a government that repudiates public international law obligations suffers a reputational harm. Here, …
Devilry, Complicity, And Greed: Transitional Justice And Odious Debt, David C. Gray
Devilry, Complicity, And Greed: Transitional Justice And Odious Debt, David C. Gray
Law and Contemporary Problems
Several issues relating to odious debt and contemporary efforts to expand the odious debt doctrine to cover all debts of odious regimes are maddeningly complex, implicating difficult issues in areas ranging from the international law of state succession to the law of commercial paper--itself a source of biannual trauma for thousands of bar aspirants. However, the scope of the debate as it has been developed in the literature is too narrow and, therefore, the questions posed too simple. In particular, any analysis of odious debt must account for issues that inhere to transitions and transitional justice. Here, Gray make some …
Renegotiating The Odious Debt Doctrine, Tai-Heng Cheng
Renegotiating The Odious Debt Doctrine, Tai-Heng Cheng
Law and Contemporary Problems
Following the United States' invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq,' the US government argued that the successor government in Iraq was not responsible for Iraq's Saddam-era debt under the purported doctrine of odious-regime debt. This purported doctrine apparently excused--by operation of law--all successor regimes from repaying debts that were incurred by oppressive predecessor regimes. Here, Cheng presents three-part response regarding the purported rule that oppressive debts of a predecessor government do not bind its successor.
Sovereigns, Trustees, Guardians: Private-Law Concepts And The Limits Of Legitimate State Power, Jedediah Purdy, Kimberly Fielding
Sovereigns, Trustees, Guardians: Private-Law Concepts And The Limits Of Legitimate State Power, Jedediah Purdy, Kimberly Fielding
Law and Contemporary Problems
One major tradition of understanding the powers and duties of sovereigns has particular relevance to arguments for revival and refurbishment of the odious debt doctrine. Here, Purdy and Fielding survey the critical role of private-law concepts in the development of this tradition. In this account, the state is a constructed and purposive legal actor, composed of a set of powers assigned by its subjects for the pursuit of certain human interests and bound by the obligation to secure and respect those interests. Moreover, they narrate that if there are inherent powers in a sovereign, they are only those that are …
A Critique Of The Odious Debt Doctrine, Albert H. Choi, Eric A. Posner
A Critique Of The Odious Debt Doctrine, Albert H. Choi, Eric A. Posner
Law and Contemporary Problems
Choi and Posner indicate that it is unclear whether the doctrine will improve the welfare of the population that might be subject to a dictatorship in terms of the odious debt doctrine. The traditional backward-looking defense of the odious debt doctrine, which suggests that the doctrine is costless because it releases a suffering population from an unjust debt, is seriously incomplete. Although in specific cases the benefits of loan sanctions may exceed the costs, the defenders of the doctrine have not made the empirical case that the net benefits are sufficiently high in the aggregate as to warrant routine application …
People As Resources: Recruitment And Reciprocity In The Freedom-Promoting Approach To Property, Jedediah Purdy
People As Resources: Recruitment And Reciprocity In The Freedom-Promoting Approach To Property, Jedediah Purdy
Duke Law Journal
Theorists usually explain and evaluate property regimes either through the lens of economics or by conceptions of personhood. This Article argues that the two approaches are intertwined in a way that is usually overlooked. Property law both facilitates the efficient use and allocation of scarce resources and recognizes and protects aspects of personhood. It must do both, because human beings are both resources for one another and the persons whose moral importance the legal system seeks to protect. This Article explores how property law has addressed this paradox in the past and how it might in the future. Two bodies …
The Law And Economics Of Identity, Rafael Gely
The Law And Economics Of Identity, Rafael Gely
Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy
"24 Social norms, for example, have long had an important impact on gender roles in employment specifically with respect to work/family concerns.25 Moreover, one of the central conclusions of the famous Hawthorne experiments of the 1930s26 was that employee work effort is significantly influenced by the norms of the employee's workgroup with respect to what constitutes an appropriate work level or output.27 Applying this analysis, employees are deemed not "irrational" when they don't increase output in response to increased employer incentive pay; they are simply responding to workplace social norms-i.e., they don't want to be ostracized by fellow employees as …
Farm-Animal Welfare, Legislation, And Trade, Gaverick Matheny, Cheryl Leahy
Farm-Animal Welfare, Legislation, And Trade, Gaverick Matheny, Cheryl Leahy
Law and Contemporary Problems
The US has among the weakest farm-animal-welfare standards in the developed world. Although improvements in farm-animal welfare are economically feasible, nations and states enacting protective regulation are threatened by competition with cheaper, non-compliant imports. Although recognition in trade agreements and restrictions on sale could help to protect animal welfare, they may rarely be politically feasible. Campaigns directed at consumers and retailers are likely to be more cost-effective than production-related regulations in improving animal welfare and are also compatible with abolitionist objectives.