Odious Debt - Application

Application

In December 2008, Rafael Correa, President of the Republic of Ecuador, declared Ecuador's national debt illegitimate odious debt, based on the argument that it was contracted by corrupt and despotic prior regimes. He succeeded in reducing the price of the debt letters before continuing paying the debt.

After the overthrow of Jean-Claude Duvalier from Haiti, there were calls for cancellation of Haiti's debt to multilateral institutions, based on the argument that it was unjust odious debt, and that Haiti could better use the funds going towards debt service for education, health care, and basic infrastructure. As of February 2008, the Haiti Debt Cancellation Resolution had 66 co-sponsors in the U.S. House of Representatives. Several organizations in the U.S. issued action alerts around the Haiti Debt Cancellation Resolution, and a Congressional letter to the U.S. Treasury, including Jubilee USA, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti and Pax Christi USA.

Read more about this topic:  Odious Debt

Famous quotes containing the word application:

    “We will not be imposed upon by this vast application of forces. We believe that most things will have to be accomplished still by the application called Industry. We are rather pleased, after all, to consider the small private, but both constant and accumulated, force which stands behind every spade in the field. This it is that makes the valleys shine, and the deserts really bloom.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man ... not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.”
    —Jean Genet (1910–1986)

    “The receipt to make a speaker, and an applauded one too, is short and easy.—Take of common sense quantum sufficit, add a little application to the rules and orders of the House, throw obvious thoughts in a new light, and make up the whole with a large quantity of purity, correctness, and elegancy of style.”
    —Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)