INTERNATIONAL DEBT RENEGOTIATION - LESSONS FROM THE PAST

Numerous accounts are available of the external debt of the developing countries. Many of these provide quantitative details of the recent growth, character and size of the debt, or discuss its implications to creditors. Little has been said, however, of the diversity in the treatment over time of individual debtor countries by creditors when relief of contractual obli- gations was required, and of what had motivated creditors when doing so. The account that follows attempts to do so but makes no claim to a quantitative or exhaus- tive study, presenting instead a qualitative and selective review of international debt relief negotiations in some of which the writer has participated. © 1979.