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. A critical area of legal scholarship addresses the issue of creditor responsibility for the debt burden, in particular the creation of odious debts. There are competing definitions of what debts are odious. The most commonly cited is that 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. Several negotiated write-downs and unilateral repudiations of debt have occurred on the basis of the alleged odious nature of particular sovereign debts.
CISDL has been carrying out cutting-edge research since 2002 on this issue. A working paper on the Doctrine of Odious (Illegitimate) Debts was circulated internationally in 2003, and has been cited by most writers on this subject, which is now a fully developed area of legal scholarship. The paper is composed of three parts:
- Chapter One: The Odious Debt Doctrine Under International Law: Definition, Evidence and Issues Concerning Application (Jeff King)
- Chapter Two: Sites and Strategic Legal Options for Addressing Illegitimate Debt (Ashfaq Khalfan)
- Chapter Three: The Odious Debt Doctrine and International Public Policy: Assessing the Options (Bryan Thomas)
Available for download Report Odious_Debt_Study | Executive Summary OdiousDebtdebt_execsum