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ARGENTINA IS SEEKING to sue the United States at the world court over US court rulings that last week forced the country into a default.
The International Court of Justice, commonly known as the world court, said in a statement today it has received a request from Argentina to take on the case. There is a major hurdle though: the US must agree to grant the international court jurisdiction if the suit is to proceed.
Sovereignty
In a statement, the Hague, Netherlands-based court said Argentina’s filing asserted that US court rulings amount to “violations of Argentine sovereignty.”
The dispute stems from a US court’s order for Argentina to pay in full a group of bondholders led by a New York hedge fund who refused to accept lower payments for restructured bonds following the country’s default in 2001.
The US court, in a decision upheld by the Supreme Court, ordered Argentina to pay the holdout investors about $1.5 billion. It blocked the country from making $539 million in interest payments to bondholders who did accept the restructuring, leading the country into a new default on July 30.
Argentine officials have repeatedly argued that the US court decisions violate its sovereignty.
Default
The default, the country’s second in 13 years, adds increased uncertainty to an economy already in recession.
The International Court of Justice is the United Nations’ court for resolving disputes between nations. In its statement today, it said it has passed on Argentina’s filing to the US government.
It said that no action will be taken in the proceedings “unless and until” the U.S. agrees to grant the UN court jurisdiction.
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Can’t but admire the big brass balls hanging from Argentina.
Agree, but it won’t get them anywhere.
Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, Pakistan, Gaza, should all sue the United States for direct and indirect war crimes.
Yes, all the great paragons of democracy that you mention should sue the USA. Germany and Japan should sue as well for being roundly thrashed during WW2 and because America was simply, well, beastly, to them.
I’d like to sue America for being war mongering fuchtards. Like Argentina, doubt I’ll get anywhere with it though.
Happy enough to live off the back of their warmongering though, aren’t ya?
Seeing as America has to agree to this case I’d not imagine we will be seeing any court action….
For all America cares they might as well be playing a game of Monopoly.
Argentina defaulted in the early 2000′s and some silly Irish people held this up as a beacon of what Ireland should have done, defaulting is not pleasant for the average joe….its far far worse then the cuts and tax’s Ireland has introduced instead of a default..
Maybe some people in favor of a default should read about normal people in Argentina
“I met Carina Etchegaray, the mother of two children aged 14 and 16.
When Argentina last defaulted at the end of 2001, she lost huge amounts of savings.
She had wanted to buy a house for her young family. But at the end of 2001, the government introduced what was known as the “corralito”. It literally means a small enclosure in Spanish, but refers to when the government partially froze bank accounts and people were stopped from taking money out.
“When we finally had the money, because of devaluation, we could only buy a car for the same quantity of money we had for a house,” she says. ”
You might make sense apart from the fact that no one in Ireland wanted to default on sovereign debt as Argentina have done – we just didn’t want to add private banking debts to sovereign debt, something which the traitors lenihan and Noonan did. Ruining the country and ironically removing the sovereign part from Ireland.
They have good legal advice. Always sue somebody who is capable of paying.
Somebody else is always to blame for our misfortune.
The Yanks are bigger than the Brits.
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