Check out NPR’s The Indicator from Planet Money Episode: “The Curious Case of Odious Debt” from March 8, 2022.

Russian legal scholar Alexander Sack is credited with coining the term ‘odious debt.’ He argued that the debt of a tyrannical government should not be transferred to the people and government that succeeds it. This concept has become central to a dispute between Russia and Ukraine over $3 billion that Ukraine borrowed from Russia in 2013.

Today, we learn about the history of ‘odious debt’ and why it’s been a struggle for courts to recognize it in the law.

Wailin Wong & Darian Woods, “The curious case of odious debt,” March 8, 2022 in The Indicator from Planet Money, produced by NPR, https://www.npr.org/2022/03/08/1085284325/the-curious-case-of-odious-debt.