Legitimacy and Impartiality as Basic Principles for Sovereign Debt Restructuring

41 Yale Journal of International Law Online (2016) This essay suggests that attentiveness to the principles of legitimacy and impartiality may contribute to the instrumental success of any sovereign debt restructuring, and highlights institutional elements or practices often associated with these goals. An additional question can be raised as to whether these principles might have a further claim to special consideration, as part of emerging customary international law or general principles of law. Any determination along these lines is made difficult by the fact that legitimacy is a composite principle, constituted of multiple procedural and substantive norms, and perhaps lacks the necessary specificity to be a legal rule itself.