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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 Debt In Retrospect, Daniel K. Tarullo
Odious Debt In Retrospect, Daniel K. Tarullo
Law and Contemporary Problems
In the eighty years since Alexander Sack coined the phrase "odious debt," academics and activists have periodically rediscovered Sack's idea, often arguing for its application or extension-to this point, in vain. Here, Tarullo reveals the degree to which current interest in the problem of odious debt is intertwined with other problems that strike more critically at the well-being of developing-and emerging-market countries. He reasons that the necessarily complex effort needed to institutionalize a doctrine of odious debt is a potentially effective organizing principle for generating the political will to address these other persistent, debilitating problems.
Sovereign Debt Restructuring, Odious Debt, And The Politics Of Debt Relief, Robert K. Rasmussen
Sovereign Debt Restructuring, Odious Debt, And The Politics Of Debt Relief, Robert K. Rasmussen
Law and Contemporary Problems
Odious debt is more of a literature than a doctrine. Going back to at least the 1920s, one can find arguments that countries should not have to pay back debts that are labeled "odious." The central intuition is that the citizens of a country should not have to pay for the debts incurred by a prior "odious" regime when those funds did not benefit these citizens. It is simply not right to ask people to pay for funds from which they did not benefit, especially when the lender knew of this fact when it made its loan. Here, Rasmussen comments …
The Anarchist In The Coffee House: A Brief Consideration Of Local Culture, The Free Culture Movement, And Prospects For A Global Public Sphere, Siva Vaidhyanathan
The Anarchist In The Coffee House: A Brief Consideration Of Local Culture, The Free Culture Movement, And Prospects For A Global Public Sphere, Siva Vaidhyanathan
Law and Contemporary Problems
Jürgen Habermas' influential historical work, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, describes a moment in the social and political history of Europe in which a rising bourgeoisie was able to gather in salons and cafes to discuss matters of public concern. The public sphere represented a set of sites and conventions in the eighteenth century in which (almost exclusively male) members of the bourgeoisie could forge a third space to mediate between domestic concerns and matters of state. Here, Vaidhyanathan examines one particular Public Sphere experiment--the rise of a global Free Culture Movement that aims to limit the spread …