United States Law Of Sovereign Immunity Relating To International Financial Transactions

Immunity for international organizations and their staff, while long considered necessary to their functioning, has fallen under scrutiny and criticism in practice. These contributions, originally prepared for a conference held at Leiden University in June 2013, are re-published here in celebration of the 10th anniversary of the International Organizations Law Review.

Xiaodong Yang examines the issue of jurisdictional immunities of States and their property in foreign domestic courts.

This book provides a thorough legal analysis of sovereign indebtedness, examining four typologies of sovereign debt – bilateral debt, multilateral debt, syndicated debt and bonded debt – in relation to three crucial contexts: genesis, restructuring and litigation. Its treatise-style approach makes it possible to capture in a systematic manner a phenomenon characterized by high complexity and unclear boundaries. Though the analysis is mainly conducted on the basis of international law, the breadth of this topical subject has made it necessary to include other sources, such as private international law, domestic law and financial practice; moreover, references are made to international financial relations and international financial history so as to provide a more complete understanding. Although it follows the structure of a continental tractatus, the work strikes a balance between consideration of doctrinal and jurisprudential sources, making it a valuable reference work for scholars and practitioners alike.

The doctrine of state immunity bars a national court from adjudicating or enforcing claims against foreign states. This doctrine, the foundation for high-profile national and international decisions such as those in the Pinochet case and the Arrest Warrant cases, has always been controversial. The reasons for the controversy are many and varied. Some argue that state immunity paves the way for state violations of human rights. Others argue that the customary basis for the doctrine is not a sufficient basis for regulation and that codification is the way forward. Furthermore, it can be argued that even when judgments are made in national courts against other states, the doctrine makes enforcement of these decisions impossible. This fully restructured new edition provides a detailed analysis of these issues in a more clear and accessible manner. It provides a nuanced assessment of the development of the doctrine of state immunity, including a general comprehensive overview of the plea of immunity of a foreign state, its characteristics, and its operation as a bar to proceedings in national courts of another state. It includes a coherent history and justification of the plea of state immunity, demonstrating its development from the absolute to the restrictive phase, arguing that state immunity can now be seen to be developing into a third phase which uses immunity allocate adjudicative and enforcement jurisdictions between the foreign and the territorial states. The United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of states and their Property is thoroughly assessed. Through a detailed examination of the sources of law and of English and US case law, and a comparative analysis of other types of immunity, the authors explore both the law as it stands, and what it could and should be in years to come.

This revised edition has updated its predecessor, with new features such as: a review of loan concepts and terminology and discussion of the standards for asset sales. It also includes a detailed dissection of participation and assignment agreements.

The practical importance of the subject of 'The External Debt' in contemporary international life goes without saying. On the analytical level, the interest and indeed the difficulty of the subject lies in the need for a multidisciplinary approach, where political, financial and legal aspects are closely linked and require a clear understanding. From the purely legal point of view, the traditional and largely artificial boundaries between private and public law, between private international law and public international law and even, more generally, between municipal and international law are clearly marked here. In this respect any analyst has to be a complete jurist, and this collection of essays (in English and French) is an illustration of this fact.