Anna Gelpern

Navigating the Legal Complexities of Sovereign Debt LJD Week 2025 Session. Explore innovative legal strategies for sovereign debt management from the African Legal Support Facility's experience, research, and tools.

WB Law Justice & Development Week 2025, livestream session "Navigating the Legal Complexities of Sovereign Debt," 4 November 4PM moderated by Nicole Kearse, speakers from IMF, African regional institutes, Liberia, AfDB, @agelpern.bsky.social www.worldbank.org/en/events/20...

You said it all, Sir. Thanks to you, to @levmenand.bsky.social, Carola Binder @utaustin.bsky.social and Paul Tucker @harvardkennedy.bsky.social for illuminating this moment in the central bank independence debate @piie.com.

Goodbye, #DebtCon8 … until we meet again, because that’s what #DebtCon is about @georgetownlaw.bsky.social @publicdebtispublic.bsky.social @laynamosley.bsky.social @mkessler.bsky.social @upanizza.bsky.social

the platform brings together academics, lawyers, and data scientists to advance debt transparency and public access to sovereign debt information.

Developed through an interdisciplinary collaboration between Sovereign Debt Forum, Queen Mary University of London’s Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Georgetown Law’s Institute of International Economic Law, and Georgetown’s Massive Data Institute

Now live at #DebtCon8: the #PublicDebtIsPublic platform — the first web-based, centrally collated sovereign debt documentation and data commons.

🔗 Explore the platform here: publicdebtispublic.mdi.georgetown.edu

#DebtCon8 #SovereignDebt #DebtTransparency #PublicDebtIsPublic

🌍 Today at #DebtCon8 we’re launching the African Debt Database (ADD). The 1st instrument-level dataset covering both domestic and external sovereign debt across the African continent.

With @markya.bsky.social @davidmihalyi.bsky.social Niccolò Rescia, Christoph Trebesch, and Ka Lok Wong.

📂 Explore the open-access data:
👉 africandebtdatabase.com

📄 Read the associated paper:
“Africa’s Domestic Debt Boom: Evidence from the African Debt Database”
👉 ideas.repec.org/p/aim/wpaimx...

@agelpern.bsky.social @laynamosley.bsky.social @gvagrad.bsky.social @gvagradcfd.bsky.social

Thanks to Princeton SPIA in DC for hosting us on Monday, Day 1 of #DebtCon8 Starting at dawn with the existential question: Liquidity?! @princetonsovfinlab.bsky.social @publicdebtispublic.bsky.social #SovereignDebtForum @findevlab.bsky.social @upanizza.bsky.social @mkessler.bsky.social

It's the most wonderful time of the year....for debt geeks. @agelpern.bsky.social @upanizza.bsky.social @mkessler.bsky.social and I are so excited to welcome folks to DebtCon8!

web.cvent.com/event/005168...

Join us for #DebtCon8, held in Washington, DC on October 13-15, 2025!

www.law.georgetown.edu/iiel/initiat...

@upanizza.bsky.social #DebtCon8 is real & it’s 1glorious #DebtCon 3days 75papers 15panels 11 RTs 99speakers fr 6continents +10^6 #sovereigndebt acronyms eg #PSI #DSA #PCS #PDIP & #OMG aka #Argentina @laynamosley.bsky.social @mkessler.bsky.social @robinwigglesworth.ft.com @georgetownlaw.bsky.social

Jet lagged but happy to be back in the US fior #DebCon8

Less than two weeks left ‘til the #PublicDebtIsPublic platform launch at #DebtCon8! 😮 #sovereigndebt #debtcon #sovereigndebtforum @georgetownlawofficial @upanizza.bsky.social @laynamosley.bsky.social @mkessler.bsky.social @diegorivetti.bsky.social @davidmihalyi.bsky.social @tracyalloway.bsky.social

A new study by Kiel Institute on How China Collateralizes show how rather than infrastructure as collateral, it's cash collateral in escrow reserves paid by debtor's commodity exports which underpin such agreements. Governance implications.

www.ifw-kiel.de/fileadmin/Da...

@agelpern.bsky.social

Hey D.C. friends! If you see billboards or posters in the District from @ofthebraveusa.bsky.social demanding federal agents take off their mask, be sure to take a picture and share it!

Totally agree, but, in the meantime, Maryland could offer free vaccines to residents of D.C.,and ask fellow pro-science states to help with the cost.

Reason No. 9000 for #DCStatehood.

A Real Place Deserves Real Rights Statehood for Washington, D.C., is a matter of justice.

"There really is one crucial, unbridgeable difference between Washingtonians and other Americans: You have more power than we do—a lot more power"
Statehood for DC!
www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

An ACLU tweet against a backdrop of D.C. rowhomes reads, "We need DC statehood NOW."

Micromanaging the day-to-day affairs of D.C. is not what voters elected the president and members of Congress in their home states to accomplish.

We need D.C. statehood NOW: dcstatehoodnow.org

Take it from the citizens of DC. This is all a distraction, and another power grab that threatens the health of our democracy.

op: @washingtonpost.com

What happens is negotiated. What should happen depends on all-in terms, which can be hard to discern.

Out of public sight, China’s state-backed lenders secure priority repayment from emerging economies with cash collateral New report and cache of Chinese debt contracts reveal that the commodity export revenues of developing countries are routed to offshore bank accounts, raising fiscal governance and debt transparency c...

“We see Chinese lenders expanding and adapting standard market tools to make exceptionally risky loans safer,” said Anna Gelpern, a Georgetown Law Professor and Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “ @agelpern.bsky.social www.aiddata.org/blog/chinese...

China verlangt umfassende Sicherheiten für Kredite an Entwicklungsländer Chinas Staatsbanken verlangen für Kredite an Schwellen- und Entwicklungsländer oft umfangreiche Sicherheiten, die über die typische Absicherung zwischen Staaten hinausgehen und den Anforderungen priva...

"How China Collateralizes" ist eine Zusammenarbeit unserer Autor*innen Christoph Trebesch, Sebastian Horn und Paulina Kintzinger mit @agelpern.bsky.social @georgetownlaw.bsky.social @piie.com, Omar Haddad und Bradley Parks AidData @wm.edu
ifw-kiel.de/de/publikati...

DebtNerds drinks at the very cool Ground Control in Paris with @agelpern.bsky.social @davidmihalyi.bsky.social @mkessler.bsky.social @theomaret.bsky.social @diegorivetti.bsky.social

Here’s the “Presidential Memorandum”:

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

There’s no Insurrection Act invocation; Trump is federalizing 2000 CA Nat’l Guard personnel only to “protect federal functions.”

*Without* invoking the Insurrection Act, anything more would violate the Posse Comitatus Act.

It takes years to become convinced of one’s own brilliant argument, my friend. 😎

Huge thanks to @taicollab.bsky.social and our amazing community for hosting the first sneak peak preview of the #publicdebispublic platform @georgetownlaw.bsky.social @massivedatagu.bsky.social @qmul.ac.uk @publicdebtispublic.bsky.social #sovereigndebt Stay tuned for pilot demo at #DebtCon8

5/ The legal side is just as important. Most contracts assume hard enforcement — but sovereign debt lives in a gray zone. Lawyers and economists often speak past each other. We try to bridge that gap

Enough Potential Repudiation: Economic and Legal Aspects of This article reviews recent economic and legal literature on sovereign debt in light of the COVID-19 shock. Most of the core theoretical contributions across the two disciplines hinge on immunity, and

6/ TL;DR: Sovereign debt isn’t just about who can or can’t pay. It’s about who gets to write the rules of the game.
ideas.repec.org/a/anr/reveco...