Essai sur le défaut souverain

Jean-François Boudet

Revue internationale de droit économique, 2015, vol. t. XXIX, issue 3, 373-395

Abstract: Abuse of public credit. States failure. States bankruptcy. Western States in general, and especially European States, reconnect with a vocabulary belonging to other times and other continents. Indeed, it is true that the question of public deficits has always been a headache for governments, the public debt remains a taboo topic. This positioning is due to the technical nature of voluntary borrowing mechanism that result in this set of legal obligations of the State at some point, which is usually called ?public debt?: it?s just in time to divide public office. The fact remains that governments politically resolve this matter and adopt solutions taxpayers or lenders are paying the price, even though the technicians? managers should have a leading role. These few ideas capitals highlight the economic, political and financial public credit for each state can meet the legal situation in which it has its administrative assets. The concept of sovereign default is then the negation of state sovereignty as the rulers of the country concerned find themselves unable to pay its debt. They then lose their ?credit? public confidence and potential lenders and underwriters of government bonds. In the form of political and economic pressure, physical pursuits ? even military ? or more generally what is called the ?gunboat diplomacy?, the state loses lacking even its de facto sovereignty that has, definition, monitoring his situation and cannot be de jure forced to repay its debts. In this extension, the concept of sovereign default state specifically the individuality of States like the individual loans: despite having a legal duty ? or moral ? to pay, governments no longer have the will or the ability to pay their ?sovereign debt?. History shows that this willingness or ability may not exist: it is the insolvency or bankruptcy of state. The contemporary period intends to further promote the ?control? of public debt by procedures or by the Public Accounts certification mechanisms, ratings, risk premiums or active management of public debt without these techniques can be excluded in time the previous experiments.

Keywords: state sovereignty; public debt reduction; incapability to repay public debt; role of centrals banks and private institutional investors; nature of sovereign debts; public credit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
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