Sabine Michalowski's work provides a much-needed legal perspective on the topical subject of Developing World debt repayment. The volume incorporates a single debtor country, Argentina, as an example to address global questions relating to this problem. The work assesses the range of complex issues involved in the context of international as well as national law. It further examines the political pressure creditors may apply to make vulnerable countries adapt their economic and other policies in line with their wishes. These raise obvious constitutional issues for the debtor country and pose questions of whether and how the inequality of bargaining power in such situations could influence the validity of any measures taken, whether contractual or legislative. Argentina has been chosen as a case study because as a large debtor country, it represents these sorts of issues.

Conventional wisdom holds that all nations must repay debt. Regardless of the legitimacy of the regime that signs the contract, a country that fails to honor its obligations damages its reputation. Yet should today's South Africa be responsible for apartheid-era debt? Is it reasonable to tether postwar Iraq with Saddam Hussein's excesses? Rethinking Sovereign Debt is a probing analysis of how sovereign debt continuity--the rule that nations should repay loans even after a major regime change, or else expect consequences--became dominant. Odette Lienau contends that the practice is not essential for functioning capital markets, and demonstrates its reliance on absolutist ideas that have come under fire over the last century. Lienau traces debt continuity from World War I to the present, emphasizing the role of government officials, the World Bank, and private markets in shaping our existing framework. Challenging previous accounts, she argues that Soviet Russia's repudiation of Tsarist debt and Great Britain's 1923 arbitration with Costa Rica hint at the feasibility of selective debt cancellation. Rethinking Sovereign Debt calls on scholars and policymakers to recognize political choice and historical precedent in sovereign debt and reputation, in order to move beyond an impasse when a government is overthrown.

"The Sovereign Debt Crisis," 2012 edition, looked at how governments ran up substantial deficits in order to avert a worldwide depression and their subsequent attempts to rebalance their budgets. This updated edition concentrates on the delicate balancing act the economies of the United States, Japan, and the eurozone face between the present need to boost sluggish economic growth by providing sufficiently cheap, low-risk credit and the longer-term challenges of cutting massive debt and returning to a sustainable fiscal policy. The authors argue that many of the euro area economies, having noticeable difficulty paying their international debts, are in a sovereign debt crisis, while America and Japan are, for now, holding steady but in real danger of slipping into crisis. The book shows how the process has evolved in these three major developed economies and how their policy choices impact global financial markets.

Medical confidentiality is universally recognised as a value worth protecting. However, difficulties arise when confidential medical information becomes relevant in the context of crime prevention and criminal prosecution. Should medical confidentiality be upheld where the physician holds information which is essential for the investigation of a serious crime; for establishing the truth in a criminal trial; for an accused’s defence; or for the prevention of a criminal offence? And according to which criteria should such decisions be made? Based on an examination of different approaches in medical ethics and a comparison of the relevant law of France, Germany, England and Wales and the US, this book analyses how a balance of the competing interests can best be struck.

Over the past several decades, democracy has taken root or been re-established in a number of countries with support from other democratic states and private groups. While the increase in the number of democracies worldwide has been widely heralded, very little has been written on how democracy can be protected and sustained where it has been chosen by the people of a state. In this first comprehensive guide to preventing and responding to threats to coups and erosions in democracies. Through case studies and in-depth analyses, this book provides legal and policy justification for these processes and discusses how they can be made more effective, combining the findings of an international task force on threats to democracy with contributions from leading scholars and policymakers.