Are debts of poor countries morally binding?

CRISTIAN DIMITRIU

Boulder, CO

Congreso; ROME - The fifth annual Rocky Mountains conference; 2012

University of Colorado, Boulder

I explain the conditions that need to exist in order for a debt to be binding. A crucial moral question is the following: If a despotic or corrupt leader uses loan money to repress his people, maintain himself in power, buy personal luxuries or any other illegitimate act; then why should citizens and their future generations bear the burden to repay what are basically the personal debts of their former oppressors? In order to answer this question, I connect the issue of debts with theories of social contract, and argue that the reason why certain debts are not binding in the first place is that they do not satisfy the conditions that generated collective responsibility (that is, that made citizens be bound by the state). Among these conditions, an important one is that rulers cannot be said to be acting in the name of the people when they fail act in accordance with any minimal acceptable threshold of political action.