OUVRAGE : C. Espósito, Y. Li, J.P. Bohoslavsky (eds.), Sovereign Financing and International Law. The UNCTAD Principles on Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing

Catherine MAIA

The regulation of sovereign financing is a highly topical and significant issue, in the light of continuing global financial turmoil. This book assesses the role of international law in sovereign financing, addressing this issue from both legal and economic standpoints. It takes as a starting point the recent report 'Principles on Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing' by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). This report was endorsed by the United Nations General Assembly in its December 2011 Resolution on Debt, which emphasized the need for creditors and debtors to share responsibility for preventing unsustainable debt situations and encouraged all stakeholders to pursue the ongoing discussions within the framework of the UNCTAD Initiative.

Investigating the legal and economic basis for the principles which were articulated in the report, the book develops a detailed and nuanced analysis of the controversial and complex issues they raise, including those concerning finance and credit rating agencies, contingent liabilities, debt management, corruption, fiduciary relations and duties, Collective Action Clauses, and the role of the EU and UN. Ultimately, it argues that the principles elaborated in the report correspond with general principles of international law, which provide a strong, pre-existing foundation upon which to build responsible principles for sovereign financing.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part 1 - Setting the Global Scene
1: Carlos Espósito, Yuefen Li, and Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky: Introduction
2: Yuefen Li and Ugo Panizza: Why the Need for Promoting Principles on Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing?
3: Armin von Bogdandy & Matthias Goldmann: Sovereign Debt Restructurings as Exercises of Public Authority: Towards a Decentralized Sovereign Insolvency Law

Part 2 - Legal Status of the Principles
4: Carlos Espósito and Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky: Legal Status of UNCTAD's Principles on Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing
5: Michael Waibel: Out of Thin Air? Tracing the Origins of the UNCTAD Principles in State Practice

Part 3 - Comparative Studies: General Principles
6: Matthias Goldmann: Legal Stipulations of Sovereign Lending and Borrowing in Domestic Jurisdictions
7: Anastasios Gourgourini, Antonis Bredimas, and Georges Pavlidis: The Legal Contours of Sovereign Debt Restructuring under the UNCTAD Draft Principles

Part 4 - Debt Management
8: Kunibert Raffer: Improving Debt Management on the Basis of UNCTAD's Principles
9: Juan Bautista Justo: UNCTAD's Principles and the United Nations Convention against Corruption. Links and joint strategies
10: José Oyola and Marie Sudreau: Fiduciary Relations: Legal Framework and Implications for Responsible Sovereign Debt Management
11: Ignacio Tirado: Current EU Mechanisms to Tackle Sovereign Insolvency: An Analysis Against the Benchmark of the UNCTAD Principles

Part 5 - China as a Case Study
12: Meibo Huang: China's Governmental Preferential Loans and the Performance of its Lending Responsibility - Take China Export-Import Bank as an Example
13: Xiuli Han: Debt Crisis Prevention for China as the Biggest Sovereign Creditor and the Principles

Part 6 - Two Key Issues
14: Lee Buccheit: Restructuring a Sovereign's Contingent Liabilities

Part 7 - Outlook and Implementation
15: Mark C. Weidemaier: Producing Change in Sovereign Lending Practices
16: Anna Gelpern: Implementation of the Principles on Responsible Sovereign Financing

Part 8 - Conclusions
17: Robert Howse: Concluding Remarks in the Light of International Law

 

Carlos ESPÓSITO, Yuefen LI, Juan Pablo BOHOSLAVSKY (eds.), Sovereign Financing and International Law. The UNCTAD Principles on Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013 (432 pp.)

Carlos Espósito holds a Chair in Public International Law at the University Autónoma of Madrid and is current Vice President of the European Society of International Law. His interests extend to all aspects of international law. He has published widely, including books on the ICJ advisory jurisdiction, the WTO, the role of courts in transitional justice, and jurisdictional immunities of States and human rights.

Yuefen Li has been working in UNCTAD since 1990 and is currently its Head of Debt and Development Finance Branch. She is also a guest professor at Tsinghua University, and two other universities in China. Previously she has taught economics and economics related courses at the University of International Business & Economics in China. She has academic degrees from universities in China, the United Kingdom and the United States. She has published books, papers, and articles in professional journals and newspapers, and contributed extensively to UNCTAD publications and documents.

Juan Pablo Bohoslavsky is currently a Sovereign Debt Expert in UNCTAD working for the initiative on "Responsible Sovereign Lending and Borrowing." He worked for UN ECLAC and the Argentinean government on legal issues related to sovereign debt and foreign investments. He has a bachelor in law, an LL.M. in corporate law, and a Ph.D. in Law. He was Hauser fellow at New York University and postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg. His scholarship has appeared in international refereed journals.

Contributors:
Manuel Monjas Barroso, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Armin von Bogdandy, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law
Antonis Bredimas, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Lee Buccheit, Partner, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP
Anna Gelpern, American University, Washington College of Law
Matthias Goldmann, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law
Anastasios Gourgourini, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Mitu Gulati, Duke University
Xiuli Han, Xiamen University
Robert Howse, New York University
Meibo Huang, Xiamen University
Juan Bautista Justo, Universidad Nacional del Comahue
Fernando Gallardo Olmedo, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
José Oyola, INTOSAI-International Organization of Supreme Audit Institutions
Ugo Panizza, Chief of the Debt And Finance Analysis Unit, UNCTAD; Professor of Economics, Graduate Institute, Geneva
Georges Pavlidis, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Kunibert Raffer, University of Vienna
Carmen Mendoza Resco, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Marie Sudreau, Sovereign Debt Associate, UNCTAD
Ignacio Tirado, Legal Counsel, World Bank; Senior Lecturer of Corporate and Insolvency Law at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Michael Waibel, University of Cambridge
Mark C. Weidemaier, University of North Carolina