Decolonization was conditioned on new states honoring contracts made without their consent.
Evidence
Rappard’s solution would have significant consequences for the development of the mandates and for later neoliberal responses to decolonisation. He successfully proposed that the League make clear it would not approve any cessation or transfer of the mandate (including in the event of eventual independence) without advance assurance that the new government would ‘accept responsibility for the fulfilment of the financial obligations regularly assumed by the former Mandatory Power’, and respect ‘all rights regularly acquired’ under its administration. The people of the mandates would not be considered ready to ‘stand by themselves’ until they guaranteed the rights of private capital and respected contracts made without their consent. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 92
Categorization
- XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s Austerity/Neoliberalism focus — this is the origin of debt-continuity conditions imposed on postcolonial states. — connects to: New states become automatically bound by international law without consenting to it. — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 528; The agreements legally limited the practical sovereignty of new states. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 90; Cooperation agreements stripped new states of sovereign control over key sectors. — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 86 (+2 more)
- SEED: Article angle: how ‘odious debt’ doctrine and its inverse (mandatory succession of debts) shaped modern sovereign-debt politics.
Broader Connections
- New states become automatically bound by international law without consenting to it.
#expands(0.85) — HLA Hart, The Concept of Law (Clarendon Law…, 528 - The agreements legally limited the practical sovereignty of new states.
#corroborates(0.80) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 90 - Cooperation agreements stripped new states of sovereign control over key sectors.
#exemplifies(0.80) — Fanny Pigeaud_ Ndongo Samba Sylla, Africa’s Last Colonial Currency, 86 - Colonial officials kept legal distinctions after freedom to sustain slavery.
#expands(0.72)