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CISDL International Debt Legitimacy Project The debt burden of developing country governments is a critical issue for sustainable development, and reduces the level of resources available for poverty eradication and environmental protection. Recent multilateral initiatives have addressed reduction of debt to contribute to poverty eradication, and the consideration of arbitration frameworks to address state insolvency. An emerging area of legal scholarship addresses the issue of creditor responsibility for the debt burden, in particular the creation of odious debts. Odious debts are those that are incurred by a government without the consent of its people, with no benefit to them, with the full awareness of the creditor. This doctrine has been invoked by several States, international jurists and tribunals who have argued that the resulting debts cannot be enforced in international law. Most recently, the interim Iraqi National Assembly called for the creation of an independent tribunal to review the validity of debts incurred by the Ba’athist government. CISDL has been carrying out cutting-edge research since 2002 on this issue. A working paper on the Doctrine of Odious (Illegitimate) Debts was been circulated internationally in 2003, and has been cited by most writers on this subject. The paper is composed of three parts:
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CISDL is now preparing a larger academic publication on odious debts from a legal, economic and political perspective. Further Resources ‘Preliminary Structural and Procedural Aspects of an Iraq Debt Tribunal’, Jeff King, CISDL Legal Research Fellow, available at: http://www.jubileeiraq.org/tribunal.htm Odious Debt: Definition, Application and Context, Ashfaq Khalfan, presentation at the Annual Conference of the European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD), 30 October 2006. Spanish Translation: Deuda odiosa: definición, aplicación y contexto For more information, please contact: |
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