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Odious debt wears two faces: systemic illegitimacy, problems, and opportunities in traditional odious debt conceptions in globalized economic regimes.
- Article from:
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Law and Contemporary Problems
- Article date:
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September 22, 2007
- Author:
- Backer, Larry Cata
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Copyright informationCOPYRIGHT 2007 Duke University, School of Law. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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I
INTRODUCTION
In the early 1980s, the People's Republic of China (PRC) resisted a lawsuit filed in U.S. federal court seeking to enforce obligations to pay on defaulted bearer bonds issued by the Chinese Imperial government in 1911. (1) The PRC maintained, in part, that it had no obligation to pay because "the Chinese view the bonds as an improper part of the Western powers' domination of China at the beginning of this century and as a direct cause of the Revolution of 1911." (2) This political reality, China argued, had a substantive legal consequence: "the PRC maintains that under the principle of non-liability for 'odious debts' China bears no responsibility for ...