Michalowski, Sabine --- "Repayment of Sovereign Debts from a Legal Perspective: The Example of Argentina" [2006] ELECD 77; in Dine, Janet; Fagan, Andrew (eds), "Human Rights and Capitalism" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006)

Book Title: Human Rights and Capitalism

Editor(s): Dine, Janet; Fagan, Andrew

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845422684

Section: Chapter 12

Section Title: Repayment of Sovereign Debts from a Legal Perspective: The Example of Argentina

Author(s): Michalowski, Sabine

Number of pages: 27

Extract:

12. Repayment of sovereign debts from a
legal perspective: The example of
Argentina1
Sabine Michalowski

INTRODUCTION
In present day Argentina, not a day passes in which one is not, on the one
hand, reminded of the extreme poverty in which large parts of the country's
population live, and of the ongoing negotiation of debt repayment between
the Argentinean Government and its foreign creditors, on the other. Without
wanting to minimise other factors that have a negative effect on Argentina's
economic recovery and on the possibility of the Argentinean state to protect
the economic and social rights of its citizens, debt repayment plays a pre-
dominant role because instead of being able to use its financial resources in
order to revive its economy and provide social assistance to citizens in need,
the country needs to dedicate an important percentage of its resources to debt
repayment. In fact, even during the last few years of acute economic crisis,
Argentina repaid more of its debts than it received from International Finan-
cial Institutions (IFIs) in the context of debt refinancing.2 More importantly
still, the IMF, the World Bank, and the governments of the G7 states use
Argentina's dependency on debt-restructuring etc. in order to influence
Argentinean economic policies. Applying the logic of capitalism, they re-
quire that the fulfilment of the country's obligations towards its creditors be
regarded as a matter of prime concern, prioritising it even over poverty
reduction measures and other social policies that might ...