My interest in sovereign debt began as a UN economist in the 1980s. We detailed statistics on the stark impact of the crises and watched Latin American presidents plead for help in the General Assembly. Based in New York, I got invited to some meetings of major banks that held problem debt, wouldn’t admit it, but ultimately had to accept losses. African countries in crisis were mainly in debt to official creditors that also did not want to accept losses. Over time, the types of creditors changed and changed again, and debt crises kept reappearing, being fixed, reappearing until today. This is dramatic stuff. How could I not be interested?
Even more than a decade after publication, this book continues to be read as its 20 authors captured well the politics and economics of developing country debt crises since the 1980s, unfortunately made timely again by a new wave of crises today. It contains in-depth studies of the debt crises in Argentina, Ethiopia, and Russia, and how unsustainable debts that governments owed to banks, bondholders, and other governments were (and still are) renegotiated. Those chapters provide an important complement to analytical essays by prominent economic and legal thinkers, and the discussion of international reform proposals that would have done the job better in bringing countries out of crisis if only they had been adopted.
In this recent book from South Africa, a group of mostly African academics and lawyers, including some young researchers, examine the financial stresses that COVID put on the sovereign debt burden of countries in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), including studies of Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The authors view the debt constraints on SADC governments from an economic, financial, and human rights perspective, domestically and in interacting with international institutions, including limits on available debt relief.
The book also contains proposals to evade such crises in the future, including in a chapter by your correspondent.
The book is available in French and Portuguese as well as English, and you can download a copy for free. What could be better?
If you hung around Occupy Wall Street in 2012, you might recall a charismatic, somewhat disheveled young anarchist named David Graeber.
He was also a brilliant anthropologist who organized “The Very Boring Book Club” in his living room, where members read his astounding new book.
It seems the essential economic transaction all through recorded history in Western and Asian civilizations was not buying and selling by independent actors, despite what economists proclaim, but lending and borrowing.
When you get your head around this perspective, you can make more sense of world history up to today.
David was also an engaging writer despite being a serious academic (he died in 2020), who put 100 pages of notes and bibliography in a small font at the end of the book.
The groundbreaking international best-seller that turns everything you think about money, debt, and society on its head—from the “brilliant, deeply original political thinker” David Graeber (Rebecca Solnit, author of Men Explain Things to Me)
Before there was money, there was debt. For more than 5,000 years, since the beginnings of the first agrarian empires, humans have used elaborate credit systems to buy and sell goods—that is, long before the invention of coins or cash. It is in this era that we also first encounter a society divided into debtors and creditors—which lives on in full force to this day.
Most debts embody a legal contract specifying how and when the borrowed funds will be repaid and any circumstances in which the obligation can be amended.
Non-payment of most loan contracts end up before a judge whose decisions on repayment are guided by a national bankruptcy law. Debts of sovereign states differ.
Insolvent governments negotiate partial or delayed repayment with their various creditors. The starting point is always that the contracts must be honored.
Professor Lienau argues that there are instances in legal theory and historically in practice in which governments did not and should not have had to repay “illegitimate” debts. She calls for international recognition of a legally enforceable concept of “responsible” lending and borrowing.
Imagine how that might make creditors think twice about lending to oppressive regimes?
Conventional wisdom holds that all nations must repay debt. Regardless of the legitimacy of the regime that signs the contract, a country that fails to honor its loan obligations damages its reputation, inviting still greater problems down the road. Yet difficult dilemmas arise from this assumption. Should today's South Africa be responsible for apartheid-era debt? Is it reasonable to tether postwar Iraq with Saddam Hussein's excesses?
Rethinking Sovereign Debt is a probing historical analysis of how sovereign debt continuity--the rule that nations should repay loans even after a major regime change, or expect reputational consequences--became the consensus approach. Odette Lienau…
When people talk about human rights and sovereign debt, it is usually when the government cannot pay its obligations and squeezes its citizens in the effort.
Who will speak up to protect those people? Thirty authors (including your correspondent) aim to do just that.
While one essay claims that creditor (property) rights trump human rights in international law, most of the authors discuss how to bring human rights into the legal landscape governing different types of foreign loans or investment, or how to protect the rights to food, health, education and more when the International Monetary Fund and creditors demand austerity.
Other essays propose international legal reforms (including arbitral, soft law, and “anti-vulture” litigation). Scholars, activists, or just the curious will want to consult this important and thoroughly accessible volume.
Sovereign debt is necessary for the functioning of many modern states, yet its impact on human rights is underexplored in academic literature. This volume provides the reader with a step-by-step analysis of the debt phenomenon and how it affects human rights. Beginning by setting out the historical, political and economic context of sovereign debt, the book goes on to address the human rights dimension of the policies and activities of the three types of sovereign lenders: international financial institutions (IFIs), sovereigns and private lenders.
Bantekas and Lumina, along with a team of global experts, establish the link between debt and…
Government borrowing is the golden goose that makes possible investment in public infrastructure and continuing expenditures despite temporary shortfalls in tax revenue.
But when not managed well or when rocked by unforeseen catastrophes, sovereign debt can become an impossible burden.
Because the International Monetary Fund is mandated to worry about international financial stability, it is the central institution for international oversight of sovereign debt.
In this volume, the IMF brought together 38 economic and legal experts to explain to a broad audience why governments borrow, how to borrow sustainably, and how to emerge from default.
It is not a training manual but is comprehensive and clearly written so that even ministers of finance and legislators should understand it and civil society should draw on it in campaigns against debt crises.
The last time global sovereign debt reached the level seen today was at the end of the Second World War, and this shaped a generation of economic policymaking. International institutions were transformed, country policies were often draconian and distortive, and many crises ensued. By the early 1970s, when debt fell back to pre-war levels, the world was radically different. It is likely that changes of a similar magnitude -for better and for worse - will play out over coming decades. Sovereign Debt: A Guide for Economists and Practitioners is an attempt to build some structure around the issues of sovereign…
As a trauma therapist and dedicated researcher, I love uncovering valuable insights within lesser-known books. There are hidden gems, free from the pressure of commercial success, crafted by authors deeply committed to research, understanding, and the art of writing itself. Their dedication resonates with me, as I believe in the profound value of information and the power of critical thinking. Through my own book, Traumatization and Its Aftermath, I aim to emphasize that psychological concepts often lose their depth in translation and my mission is spreading awareness and fostering a deeper understanding of trauma and its intricate facets. With that idea in mind, I chose these five titles.
A fresh take on the difference between trauma and hardship in order to help accurately spot the difference and avoid over-generalizations.
The book integrates the latest findings in brain science, child development, psycho-social context, theory, and clinical experiences to make the case that trauma is much more than a cluster of symptoms to be tamed, but instead best understood as development gone off course, away from growth and towards (only) survival.
This book prompts a profound shift in perception, inviting to view trauma as an intricate and diverse experience, a point of view that ultimately leads to sharper treatment and, hopefully, more healing. It encourages a transition from asking, "What happened to you?" to the deeper question, "What is your relationship with what happened to you?"
Traumatization and Its Aftermath: A Systemic Approach to Understanding and Treating Trauma Disorders
The book is comprehensive, bold, and practical-a much-needed resource for the assessment and treatment of trauma. Instead of the traditional focus on the overall importance of healing, Traumatization and its Aftermath decodes why some people don't heal as easily as others, analyzes the various failures of diagnosis, and explains how to make therapeutic interventions truly effective.
This book offers a systemic deep dive into traumatization that clarifies myths and misinformation about the entire spectrum of trauma and provides both clinicians and non-clinicians with the right level of validation, preventive measures, conceptualization methodology, assessment tools, and healing facts that have not…
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