ABSTRACT
I am from the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana and I am not an expert on monetary law. Nonetheless, I wish to comment on two questions which seemed interesting to me, while I was listening to the discussions which have taken place so far. The first of these is more general in nature and relates to the general understanding of the debt crisis problem. It seems that it is not easy to come to a common assessment of the gravity and the magnitude of this crisis. Today we have heard different opinions concerning this situation. Some of the speakers spoke of the grave crisis, grave problems which are caused by the debt problems. The others mentioned the fact that debt servicing is taking place and the problem is not as acute as it appears to be. Now, it is of course difficult to define the relationship between the debt servicing which taking place nowadays and the social costs which have to be paid for this. I think this is an extremely difficult thing to discuss and would require much more precision and much more study to be discussed properly. This problem should be a matter for further consideration, particularly in view of the fact that many of the values which are endangered by the present debt crisis are protected by virtue of different international instruments for the protection of human rights. I would only mention the International Covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. There are also other international instruments which may also be mentioned in this context. I know that at this meeting it is impossible to deal with this issue properly, but it should become a part of the possible future work for the International Law Associations and particularly its International Committee on NIEO.
