Sovereign Debt, Human Rights, and Policy Conditionality

Abstract

International policies often make the conferral of aid, debt relief, or additional trading opportunities to a country depend upon its having successfully implemented specific policies, achieved certain social or economic outcomes, or demonstrated a commitment to conducting itself in specified ways. Such policies are conditionality arrangements.My aim in this article is to explore whether conditionality arrangements that would make the conferral of debt relief depend on whether the debtor country achieves a certain status with respect to the human rights fulfilment of its population can be justified. I argue that many objections that are typically advanced against conditionality arrangements are unconvincing, and that the possible benefits of human rights conditionality are sufficient to warrant serious intellectual and practical exploration. Whether or not particular arrangements are justified cannot be determined in advance of such exploration. Show more