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Rethinking Sovereign Debt: Pleading for Human Rights, the Rule of Law, and Economic Sense

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  • Raffer Kunibert

    (Department of Economics, University of Vienna, Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1, Vienna A1090, Austria)

Abstract

Reviewing and commenting on Lienau’s book Rethinking Sovereign Debt, Politics, Reputation, and Legitimacy, this paper agrees with most of her points, aiming at supporting and complementing rather than contradicting her line of argument. It wants to corroborate her points as well as to bring up aspects that the book does not discuss. It presents two main comments on the more civilized treatment of sovereign debtors before WWII, and on the role of the Bretton Woods Institutions after 1945 that – as Lienau correctly notes – changed the positon of debtors fundamentally. The paper shows that going further back into history than the book did, namely sovereign debts in the nineteenth century, strongly corroborates Lienau’s line of argument regarding the period before WWII. The paper complements the role of the Bretton Woods Institutions with further facts, arguing that their strongly statist view is also self-serving and helpful to support multilateral lending practices violating these institutions’ statutes. Finally, the new tendency back to a non-statist regime she rightly observes is commented on, pointing out that present debt management in the eurozone constitutes a considerable backlash.

Suggested Citation

  • Raffer Kunibert, 2016. "Rethinking Sovereign Debt: Pleading for Human Rights, the Rule of Law, and Economic Sense," Accounting, Economics, and Law: A Convivium, De Gruyter, vol. 6(3), pages 243-262, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:aelcon:v:6:y:2016:i:3:p:243-262:n:2
    DOI: 10.1515/ael-2015-0015
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Raffer, Kunibert, 1990. "Applying chapter 9 insolvency to international debts: An economically efficient solution with a human face," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 301-311, February.
    2. Kunibert Raffer, 2010. "Debt Management for Development," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13932.
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    Cited by:

    1. Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky & Francisco Cantamutto & Laura Clérico, 2022. "IMF’s Surcharges as a Threat to the Right to Development," Development, Palgrave Macmillan;Society for International Deveopment, vol. 65(2), pages 194-202, December.

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