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What Iraq And Argentina Might Learn From Each Other, Anna Gelpern

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

Iraq and Argentina each launched a $100 billion debt restructuring last year. The two cases are rarely mentioned together. Most think of Argentina as the quintessential case of financial globalization gone awry - a lapsed market reformer that sank under the weight of (depending on your perspective) misguided liberalization or its own financial chutzpah, and took with it Argentine depositors, Italian retirees, Japanese banks, and offshore investment funds. Iraq's debt has a distinctly preglobalization flavor. Most of its obligations precede the recent wave of financial liberalization. In the words of Iraq's own advisers, its debt restructuring is a quintessential geopolitical …