Stephania Bonilla analyzes the dynamics of sovereign debt relations and looks at how the incentive structures of the parties involved can have implications on odious debt. She specifically looks at the role of international law in the reputation mechanism sustaining creditor-debtor relations.

This book outlines how odious debts are not legally binding under international or domestic law, contrary to widely held legal opinion.

What are fallen tyrants owed? What makes debt illegitimate? And when is bankruptcy moral? Drawing on new archival sources, this book shows how Latin American nations have wrestled with the morality of indebtedness and insolvency since their foundation, and outlines how their history can shed new light on contemporary global dilemmas. With a focus on the early modern Spanish Empire and modern Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina, and based on archival research carried out across seven countries, Odious Debt studies 400 years of history and unearths overlooked congressional debates and understudied thinkers. The book shows how discussions on the morality of debt and default played a structuring role in the construction and codification of national constitutions, identities, and international legal norms in Latin America. This new history of the moral economy of the Hispanic World from the 1520s to the 1920s illuminates contemporary issues in international law and international relations. Latin American jurists developed a global critique of economics and international law that continues to generate pressing questions about debt, bankruptcy, reparations, and the pursuit of a moral global economy.

In Africa's Odious Debts, Boyce and Ndikumana reveal the shocking fact that, contrary to the popular perception of Africa being a drain on the financial resources of the West, the continent is actually a net creditor to the rest of the world. The extent of capital flight from sub-Saharan Africa is remarkable: more than $700 billion in the past four decades. But Africa's foreign assets remain private and hidden, while its foreign debts are public, owed by the people of Africa through their governments. Léonce Ndikumana and James K. Boyce reveal the intimate links between foreign loans and capital flight. Of the money borrowed by African governments in recent decades, more than half departed in the same year, with a significant portion of it winding up in private accounts at the very banks that provided the loans in the first place. Meanwhile, debt-service payments continue to drain scarce resources from Africa, cutting into funds available for public health and other needs. Controversially, the authors argue that African governments should repudiate these 'odious debts' from which their people derived no benefit, and that the international community should assist in this effort. A vital book for anyone interested in Africa, its future and its relationship with the West.

Some argue that sovereign debt incurred without the consent of the people and not for their benefit, such as that of apartheid South Africa, should be considered odious and not transferable to successor governments. We argue that an institution that truthfully announced whether regimes are odious could create an equilibrium in which successor governments suffer no reputational loss from failure to repay odious debt and hence creditors curtail odious lending. Equilibria with odious lending could be eliminated by amending creditor country laws to prevent seizure of assets for failure to repay odious debt and restricting foreign assistance to countries not repaying odious debt. Shutting down the borrowing capacity of illegitimate regimes can be viewed as a form of economic sanction and has two advantages over most sanctions: it helps rather than hurts the population, and it does not create incentives for evasion by third parties. However, an institution empowered to assess regimes might falsely term debt odious if it favored debtors, and if creditors anticipate this, they would not make loans to legitimate governments. An institution empowered only to declare future lending to a particular government odious would have greater incentives to judge truthfully. A similar approach could be used to reduce moral hazard associated with World Bank and IMF loans.

"Critically examines the economic, historical and psychological dynamics that have combined to create an existential crisis for the European Union."--Publisher description.

The single most important shackle on the Third World is the debts owed to the richer countries - amounting now to over $1.4 trillion. The original loans were mostly put to uses of very dubious benefit to the countries concerned, and the repayments, which despite the hand-wringing and concern the North is insisting on, are stripping those countries of their assets and impoverishing their people and environments.

The book assesses the implications of debt relief for low-income countries after 12 years of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and discusses how the benefits from debt relief can be maintained.