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:
“The human mind is capable of excitement without the application of gross and violent stimulants; and he must have a very faint perception of its beauty and dignity who does not know this.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear—not absence of fear. Except a creature be part coward it is not a compliment to say it is brave; it is merely a loose application of the word. Consider the flea!—incomparably the bravest of all the creatures of God, if ignorance of fear were courage.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“The application requisite to the duties of the office I hold [governor of Virginia] is so excessive, and the execution of them after all so imperfect, that I have determined to retire from it at the close of the present campaign.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)