Law Commons^™

Odious, Not Debt, Anna Gelpern

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article argues that the doctrine of Odious Debt, which has enjoyed a revival since the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, frames the problem of odious debt in a way that excludes most of the problematic obligations incurred by twentieth-century despots. Advocacy and academic literature traditionally describe the odious debt problem as one of government contracts with private creditors. Most theories of sovereign debt key off the same relationship. But in the latest crop of cases, including Iraq, Liberia, and Nigeria, private creditors represent a small fraction of the old regime's debts. Most of the creditors are other governments …

The Flood: Political Economy And Disaster, Mari J. Matsuda

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

As summer faded to fall in 2005, a hurricane hit New Orleans, a city so unique in its history that it has more history than many American cities. It was nonetheless an American city in these telling parameters: a city of luxury alongside squalor, two-thirds Black, one-fourth poor, with the gap between its rich and poor growing at a gallop as the waters of lake and river lapped gently along aging, grass-covered levees.

Freeze the frame before the waters rise, and what do you see? A devastated public school system, where Black children are labeled “failing,” along with their schools. …

Book Review: Social Justice: The Moral Foundations Of Public Health And Health Policy, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This essay is a review of Social Justice: The Moral Foundations of Public Health and Health Policy by Madison Powers & Ruth Faden (2006).

In this pathbreaking book, senior bioethicists Powers and Faden confront foundational issues about health and justice. How much inequality in health can a just society tolerate? In a world filled with inequalities in health and well-being, which inequalities matter most and are the most morally urgent to address? In order to answer these questions, Powers and Faden develop a unique theory of social justice that, while developed for the specific contexts of public health and health …