Odious debts and international fair trade

• Dimitriu, Cristian ^[1]
  1. [1] Universidad de Buenos Aires

     Universidad de Buenos Aires

     Argentina

     
• Localización: Daimon: revista internacional de filosofía, ISSN-e 1989-4651, ISSN 1130-0507, Nº 76 (Enero - Abril), 2019, págs. 79-94
• Idioma: inglés
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Deudas odiosas y comercio internacional justo
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo
• Resumen
  • español

    Sostengo que una de las más importantes razones por las cuales el comercio internacional ha sido injusto es que las partes más debiles en las negociaciones comerciales han sido ilegítimamente forzadas a aceptar términos de comercio que no hubieran aceptado bajo condiciones más normales. Las deudas odiosas están en el centro de este tipo de injusticia. Las deudas odiosas son deudas soberanas que no son vinculantes para un estado, ya que los oficiales públicos que la contrajeron usaron el dinero para fines privados. Los países acreedores han utilizado la desventaja creada por el peso de las deudas odio-sas para conseguir condiciones de comercio más favorables.

  • English

    I argue that one of the most important reasons why international trade has been unfair is that weaker parties in trading negotiations have been illegitimately forced to accept terms of trade that they would not otherwise accept under normal circumstances, and these terms of trade have been harmful for them. Odious debts are at the center of this kind of injustice. Odious debts are debts that are not binding for the citizens of a country, as they were incurred by illegitimate rulers in the name of all the citizens, but used for private purposes, such as personal benefit, or to oppress the population. Despite the fact that these debts are not binding—that is, that they should not be repaid—creditor countries have coerced debtor countries to repay them and, more importantly for the purposes of this article, they have taken advantage of the fact that countries are burdened with these debts by tailoring trade agreements in their favor. They have done so by telling debtor countries that, unless they trade under terms that creditor countries want; non-binding (i.e. odious) debts will be enforced. The resulting state of affairs is not simply a convenient one for creditor countries and an inconvenient one for debtor countries. It is also an immoral one.