Odious Debt, Odious Credit, Economic Development, and Democratization

When a country signs an international treaty, it is not the government but the state that is bound, and the obligation will stand until a subsequent government formally exits the treaty. Exit is presumed to be costly: a government that repudiates earlier treaty obligations will suffer reputational harm in its international relations. Moreover, this general background norm of international law applies as well to debt: a government can announce that it is renouncing debt, but it will suffer severe reputational harm in the debt marketplace, much as a government that repudiates public international law obligations suffers a reputational harm. Here, Ginsburg and Ulen talks about the odious debt and odious credit in relation to economic development and democratization

Baghdad, Tokyo, Kabul ...: Constitution Making in Occupied States

Governmen

Comments on Law and Versteeg's The Declining Influence of the United States Constitution

Governmen

On the Evasion of Executive Term Limits

Executive term limits are pre-commitments through which the polity restricts its ability to retain a popular executive down the road. But in recent years, many presidents around the world have chosen to remain in office even after their initial maximum term in office has expired. They have largely done so by amending the constitution, or sometimes by replacing it entirely. The practice of revising higher law for the sake of a particular incumbent raises intriguing issues that touch ultimately on the normative justification for term limits in the first place. This article reviews the normative debate over term limits and identifies the key claims of proponents and opponents. It introduces the idea of characterizing term limits as a variety of default rule to be overcome if sufficient political support is apparent. It then turns to the historical evidence in order to assess the probability of attempts (both successful and unsuccessful) to evade term limits. It finds that, notwithstanding some high profile cases, term limits are observed with remarkable frequency. The final section considers alternative institutional designs that might accomplish some of the goals of term limits, but finds that none is likely to provide a perfect substitute. Term limits have the advantage of clarity, making them relatively easy constitutional rules to enforce, and they should be considered an effective part of the arsenal of democratic institutions

Military Occupations and Their Constitutional Residual

Governmen

Constitutionalism: East Asian Antecedents

To what degree can traditional Asian political and legal institutions be seen as embodying constitutionalist values? This question has risen to the fore in recent decades as part of a new attention to constitutionalism around the world, as well as the decline in orientalist perceptions of Asia as a region of oppressive legal traditions. This article juxtaposes East Asian analogues or antecedents of constitutionalism with a particular set of recent theoretical understandings of the concept of constitutionalism. After conducting a historical review of political and legal institutions in China, Japan and Korea, the article argues that we can indeed speak of an East Asian constitutionalist tradition. East Asia has long had notions of limited government and constraint on authority and had, at certain times and places, genuine institutional constraints on authority

Ways of Criticizing Public Choice: The Uses of Empiricism and Theory in Legal Scholarship

Public choice theory has been used to explain a wide range of observable facts. It has also been influential in legal scholarship. In Part I of this article, Tom Ginsburg reviews the main premises behind public choice theory and discusses how these premises have fared when tested empirically. In this section, for example, the author discusses how casual empirical observation of the free rider problem suggests that individuals do not always seek to maximize their own self-interest. The author further points out that additional studies, like Ostrom\u27s empirical observations of a Turkish fishery, are necessary in order to explain why individuals cooperate and contribute to public goods-and why they do not. In Part II, the author considers a revised theory of collective action with different implications for the prospect of democratic government. The revised theory models society as made up of three characters: (1) pure rational actors, (2) conditional cooperators, and (3) willing punishers. This model is more consistent with observed behavior than earlier public choice theories and enables researchers to focus on specific problems that would otherwise be difficult to examine. The author goes on to discuss the normative implications of public choice theory and concludes with a discussion of the role of positive and normative theories in law and social science