Abstract

This paper contributes towards the legal political economy foundations of an international law on sovereign bankruptcy from a money-centred perspective. Drawing on contemporary critiques of money and finance, it argues that as long as the international monetary system is structured on the basis of a hierarchy of currencies, the solvency of sovereign states is set to be critically determined by their monetary power. Rather than being the sole product of fiscal misfortune or mismanagement, sovereign insolvency episodes are inherent to the asymmetric character of global liquidity. To correct those asymmetries, it is necessary to reset the international monetary system. Yet as long as the conditions for this reform do not materialize, an international sovereign bankruptcy mechanism should be conceived as indispensable to ensuring a more equitable global economic order.

Karina Patricio Ferreira Lima is Lecturer in Commercial Law. Her main area of research is international economic law, with a focus on global economic governance and the law of money, finance and sovereign debt.

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