Odious Debt

"When a despotic regime contracts a debt, not for the needs or in the interests of the state, but rather to strengthen itself, to suppress a popular insurrection, etc, this debt is odious for the people of the entire state. This debt does not bind the nation; it is a debt of the regime, a personal debt contracted by the ruler, and consequently it falls with the demise of the regime. The reason why these odious debts cannot attach to the territory of the state is that they do not fulfill one of the conditions determining the lawfulness of State debts, namely that State debts must be incurred, and the proceeds used, for the needs and in the interests of the State. Odious debts, contracted and utilised for purposes which, to the lenders' knowledge, are contrary to the needs and the interests of the nation, are not binding on the nation – when it succeeds in overthrowing the government that contracted them – unless the debt is within the limits of real advantages that these debts might have afforded. The lenders have committed a hostile act against the people, they cannot expect a nation which has freed itself of a despotic regime to assume these odious debts, which are the personal debts of the ruler." {Link without Title}

• Debt Relief


• Debt-based Monetary System


• Developing Countries' Debt


• Jubilee USA


• Haiti's External Debt


• Moral Hazard

• Odious and Illegitimate Debt Fact Sheets


• Jubilee Iraq - Odious Debt


• Probe International - Odious Debts


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• Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 526 "Iraq's Odious Debts" by Patricia Adams


• Odious Debt in Haiti


• Jubilee Fact Sheet on Haiti's Debt


• Applying the Odious Debts Doctrine While Preserving Legitimate Lending by Seema Jayachandran, Michael Kremer, and Jonathan Shafter