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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (108644)	7/29/2003 2:57:03 AM
From: Graystone	Respond to of 281500

75,000 claims or Many American claims It would be a great thing to do, clean slate, nobody owes any one anything but wrangling will continue. The United States can lay claim to a large portion of that Iraqi foreign debt, if it is expunged, a large number of US claims would also be invalidated (reparations) and that would lessen any justifications for legitimate control of Iraqi oil revenues, many countries participated in the Oil for Food program. The abuse of human rights seems to be a planetary problem. An International force capable of dealing with problems all over the world almost exists today, the only thing required is the addition of several key players like the the UN, NATO, EU, the US needs to give them the United States Army, that army has everything you need, jeeps, planes, you name it, they could supply their own soldiers.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (108644)	7/31/2003 9:22:01 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi Maurice Winn; Re: "Iraqis owe nothing to anybody [through their now extinct government]. Private debts would still be valid, but Saddam's regime doesn't exist and other people, namely, Mr and Mrs Iraq, don't owe Russia, France, Kuwait or anyone else anything. ..." International law says that the debts of an extinct state devolve onto the successor state. Small states have always been very much subject to this law / tradition, but it also applies to fairly big states. This was applied, for example, to the debts of Russia, which had to be paid by the USSR, and to the debts of the USSR, which had to be paid by Russia II. Here's a couple good links, both from organizations that are in favor of repudiation of debt: Under the law in many countries, individuals do not have to repay if others fraudulently borrow in their name, and corporations are not liable for contracts that their chief executive officers or other agents enter into without the authority to bind the corporations. The legal doctrine of odious debt makes an analogous argument that sovereign debt incurred without the consent of the people and not benefiting the people is odious and should not be transferable to a successor government, especially if creditors are aware of these facts in advance. However, this doctrine has gained little momentum within the international legal community, although many countries could qualify (see Box 1). For example, through the 1980s, South Africa's apartheid regime borrowed from private banks, devoting a large percentage of its budget to finance the military and police and otherwise repress the African majority. The South African people now bear the debts of their repressors. ... imf.org ... Carrying out the concrete legal actions we propose via each country’s federal courts, something not explored to date, will inject new life blood into an old doctrine on odious or illegitimate debt, propounded in the last century by Professor Alexander Nahum Sack, who was Minister under the Czars of Russia, and Professor of Law in Paris. He maintained that "odious debt contracted and used for reasons which the creditors know are contrary to the interests of the nation, do not commit the latter, except to the extent that it has obtained real advantage from the debt. The creditors have committed a hostile act against the people…" "We can also include in this category debt contracted by members of the government or persons or groups associated with it to serve manifestly personal interests, interests not related to the interests of the state (14). These considerations are still valid, thus in 1982, the legal advisors of First National Bank of Chicago, wrote: "the consequences for the credit agreements of a change in sovereignty depend in part on the use of the funds by the predecessor state. If the debt of the predecessor is termed odious, i.e. that it was not used in the interests of the population, the debt can not fall to the successor"(15) ... jubilee2000uk.org -- Carl