What happens to a country’s debt if the country ends? Suppose a country either just calls it quits or is destroyed by war (for example, Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia). If that country has a national debt, including both domestic and foreign lenders, what happens to the debt? I have read about countries going bankrupt and the complex and varied processes used to address this - but that isn’t what I’m asking about. Bankruptcy refers to a country that is unable to pay its debts but wants to continue existence, and therefore it has to find some path to resolving its financial situation. I’m asking about a country that is simply going out of existence.
If the country was defeated in war, the bondholders often lose all their money. Sometimes, though, the conqueror has its own reasons to want the debt to be repaid. If the country came to an end through peaceful negotiation, the same negotiation would decide who becomes responsible for its debts. So, at the end of the U.S. Civil War, the United States declared that no one who had lent the Confederacy money to fight them was ever going to get any of it back. It even amended the Constitution (Amendment XIV, Section 4) to say that [N]either the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void. A clearer example of what you’re asking was Britain repudiating the debt of the republics it annexed in the Boer War: the republics had existed, they stopped existing, and the winner of the war decided that their debts were not its debts. More often, there’s one or more successor states that sign a treaty saying who is responsible for paying the former country’s debts. An unusual example was when Germany was partitioned into the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) after World War II, the FRG declared that it wanted to repay the former German governments’ debts, in order to rehabilitate Germany’s reputation. The United States and its allies wanted to strengthen the FRG’s claim to be the legitimate government of Germany, but did not want it to be crippled by debt as the Weimar Republic had been. They signed a treaty in 1953 by which other countries would forgive some of the debts Germany owed them before the war, West Germany would pay most of the rest, and East Germany’s share would be repaid whenever Germany reunified (which happened in 1990). Japan, however, had already defaulted on its foreign debts in 1942, and its new government defaulted on its domestic debts in 1946. Countries that break apart peacefully agree on how to split the debt. One country that did not break apart peacefully was the Russian Empire in 1917. In February 1918, the new Soviet Union repudiated the debts of both the Tsarist and Provisional governments, and in the early 1920s the Soviet Union signed bilateral treaties with Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Turkey and Persia agreeing that none of them would hold each other responsible for any of it—but France paid the interest on Russian bonds itself for the remainder of the war, and counted this sum as an additional loan to the defunct Russian Empire. These bonds continued to be traded until 1997, when, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian Federation agreed to pay France $400M to settle all outstanding debt from before May 1945. This was 1% of the amount France claimed its investors were owed. Some of Russia’s other erstwhile allies did something similar, with Britain accepting compensation of 1.6% of face value in 1986. Finland, however, which became independent from Russia at the same time, was the only country in the world to continue paying its debts to the United States from WWI through the Great Depression. In contrast, when the Soviet Union dissolved, the newly-independent republics negotiated its debts with the Group of Seven, consisting of the United States, the largest nations in Western Europe, and Japan (page 351). They first attempted to make all the successor states “jointly and severally” responsible for the Soviet debt, then realized that none of the smaller republics would ever be able to repay the debt if Russia defaulted and renegotiated that Russia would inherit all the Soviet Union’s debt along with all of its overseas assets, and finally, agreed in December 1991 that the G7 would reschedule the debt and Russia would pass economic reforms. Most efforts to buy up old assets that a country defaulted on or seized and enlist another country to force someone to compensate you for it are not even as successful as the 1% settlement that France got from Russia in 1997. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a group of speculators bought up a claimed $1.6 trillion in debt that the People’s Republic of China had issued before the Chinese revolution, and unsuccessfully lobbied to have the U.S. government try to force the People’s Republic of China to repay it, somehow. (Linking does not imply endorsement.) The least important of the reasons that will never happen is that the Republic of China still believes that it exists, on Taiwan, whereas the People’s Republic of China believes that it is the successor state of the Republic of China, which is wrong to believe that it exists. Neither of them believes that it owes the owners of $1.6 trillion of the Republic of China’s old debts any money. Countries that merge also agree on who will repay the debts of both. One interesting example is Texas becoming a state in 1845. The new State of Texas officially assumed the debts of the former Republic of Texas, but whether the federal government would bail Texas out and the debts would actually be repaid in full was not resolved until 1855. The debts of the formerly-independent realms that were annexed by Prussia in the 1860s were handled differently: while Prussia took over the debts of states it conquered in its wars of unification, and even agreed to accept a share of the Danish national debt along with the territory of Schleswig-Holstein, the Duchy of Brunswick, which negotiated its terms of unification, retained control over its own finances and repaid the money it had borrowed to build its railways through privatization. In 1870, Prussia both took Alsace-Lorraine from France and made France pay them a large sum of money. In pragmatic terms, governments want to avoid defaulting on their domestic debts because that would harm their own people and economy, and on their foreign debts because that would damage their foreign relations and make it harder to borrow money again. These same considerations usually apply to whatever new government rules the same territory. So, in another régime change (which didn’t really bring the end of a nation, but does demonstrate the point), Daniel Ortega in 1979 announced that his new Socialist government of Nicaragua would not recognize the debts of the dictatorship he had overthrown, but the Cubans convinced him that it would be unwise to antagonize the Capitalist countries that way, and he reversed course.. Today, governments that are seriously considering default as an option tend to also be in the position of needing to borrow more money, and often negotiate rescheduling through such organizations as the International Monetary Fund and the Club de Paris, which consists of 22 countries and describes itself as, “an informal group of official creditors whose role is to find coordinated and sustainable solutions to the payment difficulties experienced by debtor countries.” Most of their debt-forgiveness programs, such as the Heavily-Indebted Poor Countries Initiative of 1996, ignore how the debts were acquired and focus on how much they are holding a country’s economy back. On the Other Hand Although the above is a very Realist perspective on international relations, others argue that there is or should be a system of international law based on rules, precedents and principles of justice. One international treaty that proposes to establish some formal rules for what happens in the absence of any other specific agreement is the 1983 Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of State Property, Archives and Debts—but this treaty has no legal weight because it is not in force, and only a handful of countries has signed it. Another frequently-cited concept is “odious debt” developed by Alexandre Sachs, which derives a principle from examples like the ones I gave above, and argues that this should be applied consistently as a normative international law. Sachs argued that some debts need not be repaid because they are morally odious: If a despotic power contracts debt, not for the needs and interest of the State, but to strengthen its despotic regime, to oppress the population that combats it, that debt is odious for the whole State. The debt need not be recognised by the Nation[....] Other reasons that have been given in the past for a nation’s debt to be considered “odious” include: that the lender knew that the loan was exploitative, that the government that borrowed it had no authority to do so because it was illegitimate, that foreign rulers forced them to borrow it and used the money against the indigenous people now being asked to repay it, that a dictator borrowed in the name of his subjects but looted the money for himself, and that it was imposed under duress by an unfair treaty. This has never been codified as a principle of international law, but there have been a number of international treaties that have accepted some of these as valid reasons to repudiate a debt, such as the the United States forcing Spain to accept the debt of the former Spanish Captaincy-General of Cuba in 1898, rather than the U.S. occupation government at the time or the new Republic of Cuba, on the grounds that these funds had been diverted by Spain and not used for the benefit of the Cuban people (Thanks for correcting me, @Silverfish!); Russia’s treaties of the 1920s and 1990s; and the Treaty of Versailles nullifying the debts of German colonies in Poland and Africa that had been used to transfer land to German settlers. Note that there are organizations arguing that their interpretation of this principle should be applied universally to all nations,, leading to the emergence of a system more just, principled and consistent than the one we have now. Other authors see it the opposite way: “Despite international law, the concept of odious debt has been successfully used as a post hoc rationale when the victors of such conflicts are powerful enough to enforce their will on world financial markets and international lenders.” There have been a much larger number of unilateral sovereign defaults where a government has made a moral argument that part of its debt is illegitimate, regardless of what anyone else thinks. And, if you will forgive me my relapse, also numerous cases where countries didn’t bother with any justification other than that it was in their own people’s best interest, where countries said they were paying a debt purely for practical reasons even though they felt no moral obligation to, and where one country’s debts were not forgiven even though it would seem to have as strong a case as another whose debts were.
When a debtor dies, with the debt outstanding, the debt enters default. The estate has to solve the outstanding debt before paying out any inheritances: The estate can and does pay up. This outstanding debt of the estate is gone, the car is paid off, and enters the estate as a value to be distributed as the will or rules dictate. The estate doesn't pay up, nobody refinances the car. The car is not part of the estate and can't be inherited. The debt is in default, and the car will be repossessed by the bank, together with any other securities for the car. The items/money repossessed leave the estate before any item can be distributed. The estate does not pay up, but one of the inheritors discusses with the bank to refinance the car. The car never enters the estate. The refinancing person now has a contract with the bank about a car loan. The debt leaves the estate by virtue of being no longer in the name of the deceased, its obligation was taken up by the refinancer. It's up to the bank to agree or deny. Many loan contracts contain a clause for the case of debtors dying.
India is a quasi-federation Powers are split between the state and national government as detailed in the constitution. India is a halfway point between full federations (e.g. USA, Australia) and unitary nations (e.g. France, Austria) - it still has sovereign states like a federation but the national government has much more power to intervene. Notwithstanding, citizenship is solely the province of the national government - Indian states have no power over it.
UK-based answer: In essence there are two separate agreements: A loan agreement between the borrower and the lender A guarantee agreement between the guarantor and the lender. To answer your question, both parties in the 2nd (guarantee) agreement, can choose to terminate the guarantee contract. This is called discharge by agreement, and requires consent by both parties and consideration (i.e payment, a nominal fee would be enough) Moving on with your question, you as a third party are not privy (directly involved) in the guarantee agreement, you are only involved in the original loan agreement, and therefore you cannot force them to follow the agreement. In any case, even if they don't dissolve the guarantee agreement, if you are unable to pay the loan, the lender can always go for you first, and if you don't have enough money, the lender can go for the guarantor for the rest of the balance.
No Always assuming that the government has operated within the limits of its powers or, at least, that if they have exceeded those powers the excess was in good faith. First, there is the issue of sovereign immunity. Basically, a government can be held liable only when it consents to be held liable. Most governments never waive this with respect to their lawmaking powers because they have to be able to make laws in what they see as the public interest without fear of litigation. See, for example, cases on plain paper packaging of cigarettes. Second, most governments have the power to regulate commerce and to deal with public emergencies. There is an issue which comes up in Federations about which government has the power but even if a law is invalid, it does not follow that compensation is payable. It certainly isn’t if the law is valid.
Canada may have specific different laws, but in most countries any legal tender must be accepted for payment of a debt. There are subtleties; in the UK for example more than 20 one penny coins are not legal tender. Old coins or banknotes may cease to be legal tender at some point and can only be exchanged at a bank; it seems Canada's $10 bill is nowhere near that point. The biggest &quot;loophole&quot; is that a business owner doesn't have to allow you to create a debt. Say you go shopping in a supermarket for $40. You take your shopping, you now have a $40 debt. You take four $10 bills and hand them over, your debt is paid. At that point this $10 bill must be accepted. However, the shop owner could refuse to let you take the shopping if he doesn't like your bills. So you have no debt, so he doesn't have to accept legal tender as a debt. In a restaurant, where you typically eat your food, creating a debt, then he cannot refuse the $10 bill. And in a shop, this will not be good for his business. If my $10 bills are not accepted, then I will take advantage of my right to shop elsewhere.
Scenario 1. It doesn’t matter what it says. If it was not legally ratified, it is not legally in force. There is no absolutely no paradox at all. It is essentially just a draft amendment and would be thrown out if any attempt was made to enforce it and challenged.
What would be an appropriate legal classification? A trust. How could this entity be structured so it could manage multiple estates? As a trust. Could this entity choose to keep, say, 30% for internal use e.g. resuscitation research? If that’s what it says in the trust deed, yes. How could this entity be made "recession-bulletproof," such that it could survive collapse of civilization? It can’t. Could it be given autonomy under the direction of a single person, or even sovereignty along the lines of a Mars colony? A trust is managed by its trustee(s) for the benefit of the beneficiaries. A trustee can be an individual or a corporation and there can be one or more of them. It couldn’t be given sovereignty - only nation states are sovereign. Could it be immune from legal jeopardy if it chose to accept clients who volunteer to be frozen before they die? No. What might happen to the estates if the economy is radically altered, e.g. a scarcity-free system where money is obsolete? Beats me - you’re the science fiction writer, you make it up.