1. The Politics of Regulatory Design in the Sovereign Debt Restructuring Regime
- Author
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Brooks, Skylar
- Subjects
United States. Department of the Treasury -- Political activity -- International economic relations ,Debt relief -- Political aspects ,International law ,Campaign finance reform ,Company financing ,Political science ,United Nations. General Assembly -- Political activity -- Political aspects ,United Nations -- Political activity -- Political aspects ,International Monetary Fund -- Political activity -- Political aspects - Abstract
This article looks at two recent initiatives aimed at improving sovereign debt restructuring processes and asks why one initiative succeeded while the other failed. It argues that the success or failure of a reform initiative in the debt restructuring regime depends primarily on the legal-institutional design of the mechanism it is advancing. Hard law mechanisms face enormous political obstacles that make their realization unlikely. Several of these obstacles have been identified by previous studies, but this article highlights additional barriers. It also shows that, in contrast to hard law arrangements, private law contracts provide politically useful mechanisms for regulating debt restructuring, especially for powerful states with major influence over reform outcomes--namely, the United States. The article also argues that the historical legacy of earlier reform initiatives matters, but mainly through its ability to further enhance or diminish the political prospects of mechanisms whose utility has already been determined by their design features. Keywords global financial governance--sovereign debt--sovereign debt restructuring--regulatory politics--institutional design--contract governance--international law--United Nations, 1 Introduction On 9 September 2014, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for 'the establishment of a multilateral legal framework for sovereign debt restructuring processes.' (1) The initiative [...]
- Published
- 2019
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