Don’t Cry for Sovereign Debtors: Why Argentina’s Defeat in U.S. Courts Does Not Justify a Sovereign Debt Treaty

The Argentina sovereign debt mess is still not resolved, but already folks are debating its larger consequences for international economic governance. In particular, there continue to be calls for a new international sovereign debt mechanism to prevent another Argentina-style U.S. litigation. But although I agree that there are decent arguments for some sort of international treaty-based mechanism for sovereign debt restructuring, I disagree that the Argentina-debt litigation in the U.S. is one of them.  You can read a fuller (much longer) version of this argument in  the just posted issue of the University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law.