(September 25, 2007) The World Bank has issued a discussion paper [PDF] in which its unnamed authors dismiss the concept of odious debts as “controversial” and attempts to define it as having met with “insurmountable difficulties.”

(September 25, 2007) In the first of its kind, top legal scholars and Third World debt activists will meet next week to develop ways that will allow public international and private law to assess outstanding loans for their legitimacy and ultimate cancellation.

(September 25, 2007) The Ecuadorian Ministry of Economy and Finance announced on July 23 that it was launching the world’s first debt audit commission.

(April 3, 2007) This Article examines the process by which overlapping interests between private bankers and government translates into influence and power mediated through the use of bank loans as instruments of foreign policy.

(July 19, 2007) To view a PDF of this file please click the following:

(July 1, 2007) The concept of “odious debt” regroups a set of equitable considerations that have often been raised in the context of political transitions.

(July 1, 2007) Abstract: Rather than propose a solution to the problem of odious debts, this paper seeks to analyze the causes of odious incentives in international finance.

(June 4, 2007) The eastern coastal city of Xiamen, Fujian province, has witnessed what are probably the biggest urban-based demonstrations in China since the movement against state sector sackings and privatisation in the northeast in 2002.

(June 1, 2007) The doctrine of odious debts came into its full in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century to deal with the financial injustices of colonialism and its stalking horse, despotism. The basic rule, as articulated by Alexander Sack in 1927, is that debts incurred by an illegitimate regime that neither benefit nor have the consent of the people of a territory are personal to the regime and are subject to unilateral recision by a successor government.

(June 1, 2007) A Legal Perspective: Unconstitutional Regimes and the Validity of Sovereign Debt

(May 30, 2007) Current interest in the problem of “odious debt” is intertwined with other problems that afflict many developing and emerging market countries: despotic governments, unsustainable external debt burdens, and large-scale official corruption. If the universe of odious debt cases is relatively small, then it is likely uneconomical to develop an extensive legal apparatus ex ante.