Odious Debt Wears Two Faces: Systemic Illegitimacy, Problems, and Opportunities in Traditional Odious Debt Conceptions in Globalized Economic Regimes

Backer examines how the traditional notion of odious debt as a method of repudiating sovereign debt may undergo a conceptual revolution as it changes focus from the illegitimacy of governments obtaining loans to the illegitimacy of the systems through which such loans are made and enforced generally. He focus his analysis on the conceptual framework Fidel Castro sought to introduce into the debate about the legitimacy of sovereign debt and the extent to which this reframing might influence international institutional approaches.