Sovereignity bulwark

This amicus briefing is due to the Foreign Policy implications of allowing private creditors to effect relations with another state. This is one of the fault-lines that will define what is "sovereign" throughout this century, given that physical coercion ("gun-boat diplomacy) is now out of favor.

On Wednesday, U.S. government lawyers filed an "amicus curiae" or friend-of-the-court brief, asking that the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reverse Griesa's rulings, according to documents obtained by Reuters and reported in the Argentine media on Friday.

The judge's orders "could enable a single creditor to thwart the implementation of an internationally supported restructuring plan, and thereby undermine the decades of effort the United States has expended to encourage a system of cooperative resolution of sovereign debt crises," U.S. lawyers wrote.

Griesa accepted an interpretation of the "pari passu" clause included in many bonds that NML's parent company, Elliott Associates, used to disrupt a Peruvian debt exchange in 2000.