ABSTRACT
The main problem of an odious debts doctrine based on a violation of ius cogens is the rather fundamental issue of how to determine that a loan agreement violates ius cogens. The decisive question would be what link between the loan and the ius cogens violation would need to exist in order to justify such a finding. An application of the odious debts doctrine to cases in which principles that are commonly accepted to be part of ius cogens are violated by a state would not hinder trade or investment, but instead only make sure that trade and investment do not have the effect of enabling or facilitating such violations. While this would include judgments on the policies of regimes, to invite the international community and potential lenders to beware of dealing with regimes that violate ius cogens is different from asking them to make a democracy assessment as sometimes suggested in the context of the traditional odious debts doctrine.
