This paper was discussed at the Global Justice workshop on November 3, 2006.

Abstract of Seema Jayachandran's "Applying the Odious Debts Doctrine while Preserving Legitimate Lending":

Odious debts are debts incurred by the government of a nation without either popular consent or a legitimate public purpose. While there is some debate within academic circles as to whether the successor government to a regime which incurred odious debts has the right to repudiate repayment, in the real world this is currently not an option granted legitimacy either by global capital markets or the legal systems of creditor states. There are compelling reasons to reform the law of odious debts to allow for such a repudiation in citizens of a tyrant to repay their oppressor's personal debts, but the burden of odious-debt servicing can perpetuate the cycle of state failure which has direct national security consequences. In addition, a properly designed odious debt reform could function as an alternative sanctions mechanism to trade sanctions with fewer harmful implications for the general population of the targeted state. Classical proponents of odious debt reform advocate for recognition of a legal rule under which successor governments could challenge the validity of debts incurred by prior regimes against the odious debt legal standard in a judicial-style forum. We make the case for an alternative "Due Diligence" model of reform which provides far greater ex ante certaining for lenders both as to which investments from subsequent invalidation. The Due Diligence Model also solves certain time-consistency problems inherent to the Classical model.

About the Author

Seema Jayachandran is assistant professor of economics at Stanford University. She received her PhD in economics from Harvard University. She specializes in development economics, labor economics, and political economy.

Is there a human right to democracy? My answer, in brief, is ‘no’. Five interconnected claims will play a role in my argument for this conclusion:

1. Justice requires democracy.
2. Human rights are a proper subset of the rights founded on justice: so a society that fully protects human rights is not ipso facto just.
3. A conception of human rights is part of an ideal of global public reason: a shared basis for political argument that expresses a common reason that adherents of conXicting religious, philosophical, and ethical traditions can reasonably be expected to share.
4. That conception includes an account of membership, and human rights are entitlements that serve to ensure the bases of membership.
5. The democracy that justice requires is associated with a demanding conception of equality, more demanding than the idea of membership associated with human rights.

An underlying thought that runs through the argument is that democracy is a demanding political ideal. The thesis that there is a human right to democracy—while it may seem to elevate democracy—threatens to strip away its demanding substance.

The wave of democratic electoral revolutions in the Eastern Europe and post-Communist Eurasia revived one of the most appealing and at the same time disputable arguments in the theory of democratization: that is, that successful democratic breakthroughs in one of several places help to shape the timing and dynamic of transformation in others, where the regime change has yet to occur. This interconnectivity of transitions in time (and space) is described in terms such as 'contagion,' 'diffusion,' or 'demonstration effect.' Indeed, although hardly a decisive factor, the evidence that contagion played certain important role in transmitting the spirit of democracy and techiques for achieving it from Serbia in 2000 to Georgia in 2003 to Ukraine in 2004 to Kyrgyzstan in 2005 is evident. Needless to say that there is more than enough evidence that a large community of activists, policy advisors, local and international NGOs, and media, were purposefully involved in translating the experience, strategy and tactics of successful revolutions to the new territories. This often led to a feeling of deja vu once an observer saw TV scenes of yet another autocrat being ousted and a new democratic leader being installed by the people's power.

In the broader sence, contagion is definitely facilitated by the proximity of historical experiences and present-day concerns and dilemmas staying for the societies in the region: in other words, as far as they face similar problems, they audiences throughout the post-Communist world may have immediate understanding of what sort of solutions are suggested to them by the roaming revolutionaries.

But democrats and revolutionaries are not the only ones who can learn from the past and apply the knowledge to fulfill their political goals. Indeed, their antagonists appeared to have mastered the science and crafts of democratic transitions in order to stop them at their borders. What is more, they are becoming increasingly aware that, paraphrasing George W Bush's second inaugural address, 'survival of autocracy at home increasingly depends upon the failure of democracy abroad.' The first trend, learning to combat the democratic contagion, is an essential element of the new political trend in post-Communist Eurasia, defined by the author as preemptive authoritarianism. The second trend, joining efforts to combat democratic contagion, is reflected what can be defined as authoritarian international, which is rapidly emerging in the post-Soviet space.

This paper consists of three parts. The first explains the concept of preemptive authoritarianism. The second gives an overview of preemption may be done in a nearly perfect manner in the case study of Belarus, the country where it was used most extensively and proficiently. The third highlights the international dimension of preemptive authoritarianism on the example of Belarus-Russia cooperation, that increasingly spreads into the area of combatting democracy.

In addition to domestic political and economic restructuring, most of the former state-socialist countries opted to establish political and economic relations with "the West" as a step to make the transition to liberal democracy and a market economy irreversible in the immediate term, and to acquire a new "home" in the international system in the long run. Consequently, they sought membership in almost all "Western" international organizations and, most important, in the European Union (EU), which made an explicit link between membership and the adoption of a certain set of norms and values. Accordingly, the EU began to play an important role in the transitions of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by helping these countries meet its membership criteria. Important, then, becomes the question about the effects of this international cooperation on the democratization process in CEE. This paper focuses on the impact the EU has had on CEE applicant parties.

After its spectacular 1989 'televised Revolution,' Romania has spent most of its political transition struggling with its own past. For political scientists, these confusing times only confirmed what they had already labelled as Romanian 'exceptionalism,' a pattern dissimilar from Central European countries. However, in the early 1990s, Romania's ways were not so exceptional when compared to Belarus or Albania - it was just another case where the exit path from a totalitarian regime did not lead to democracy, but instead to some form of mild authoritarian populism.

With the benefit of hindsight, what is exceptional and needs some explanation in Romania's case is not her difficult separation with its communist past, but the final positive outcome: the signing of the Accession Treaty with the European Union (EU) in April 2005. Despite important similarities with countries such as Belarus and Albania at the beginning of its transition, why has Romania done so well by comparison? In McFaul's classification, Romania is the only post-communist country which succeeded in becoming a consolidated democracy with a balance of power clearly in favour of the former communist elites. This invites some explanation.

This paper explores the sources of both autocratic breakdown and democratization in the context of the six post-Soviet countries that emerged as competitive authoritarian between 1990 and 1995: Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine. By 2006, two patterns had emerged. First, in stark contrast to their counterparts in central Europe, competitive authoritarian regimes in the former Soviet overwhelmingly failed to democratize. Ukraine has been the only exception. Second, while some countries - Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine - had frequent autocratic breakdowns, others - Armenia, Russia, and to a lesser extent Belarus - demonstrated high degrees of autocratic stability.