(January 1, 2007) Abstract: The War in Iraq has intensified the international human rights community’s attention to the staggering amount of debt facing any future Iraqi government.

(January 1, 2007) Once upon a time, sovereign debts were just that — debts or the entitlement to be repaid fully, including interest. During the 1970s it was thought unnecessary to make any distinctions between debts, based on the assumption that sovereigns might possibly become illiquid, but could never become insolvent.

(January 1, 2007) In a sense, all debts are odious; that is, to use dictionary definitions, “hateful; disgusting; offensive.”1 Yet insofar as international economic law today is concerned, only a certain few debts can be considered “odious debts” in order to contest and perhaps eventually to repudiate them.

(January 1, 2007) 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.

(January 1, 2007) Ecuador’s debt can be considered "illegitimate" from various perspectives: ethical, financial, legal and social. The flagrant violation of human, economic, social and ecological rights caused by the debt makes it illegitimate, unjust, immoral and unrepayable.

(December 21, 2006) In a country where media censorship is national policy, Liu Jianqiang has pulled off some remarkable journalistic scoops. When a wealthy socialite struck and killed a farmer with her BMW in northeastern China three years ago — and then got off with a slap on the wrist — it was Mr. Liu, an investigative reporter from out of town, who dug deep into the case.

(December 13, 2006) Signaling a potentially momentous change in its foreign policy toward Myanmar, Thailand’s new Energy Minister Piyasvasti Amranand has said he intends to reassess, and possibly abandon, the previous Thai government’s controversial joint-plans with Myanmar’s military junta to build five hydroelectric dams along the Salween River.