In this article, we analyse how international crises and conflicts over sovereign debt have transformed the agenda of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Geneva-based organization founded in 1964 and whose history is closely linked to the G77 group of developing countries. We show how UNCTAD’s projects for structural reform of the international financial architecture were contested and ultimately rejected in the 1970s. Such defeats were a blow to the transformative goals that UNCTAD had initially set to achieve. In the 1980s, UNCTAD gradually became a technical agency and its mandate restricted to providing expert assistance and support to developing countries during their negotiations with the Paris Club. Meanwhile, the mandate to produce expertise at the macro level (the so-called ‘upstream’ area), was effectively transferred to the IMF and World Bank. With the development of the Debt Management Financial Analysis System (DMFAS), UNCTAD went from promoting systemic change in international financial architecture to sponsoring the micro-management of domestic policies as remedy to over-indebtedness. But we also show that UNCTAD did not always restrict itself to doing such ‘downstream’ work, i.e., improving debt issuing capacities and technologies of developing countries. While UNCTAD’s recent project on fair principles of lending and borrowing principles conforms to what’s expected from the group of advanced countries, another project involving the creation of an international mechanism of sovereign debt restructuring functioned as a disturbance to this fragile downstream–upstream division of labour between international organizations.

Cette recherche porte sur un projet de « développement parlementaire » mis en place en Tunisie par le Programme des Nations unies pour le développement (PNUD) à la suite du changement de régime advenu en 2011. Sur la base d’une observation participante, je prends le contre-pied de travaux consacrés à d’autres secteurs de l’action publique transnationale qui ont saisi ces formes d’intervention et d’expertise avant tout comme la mise en circulation de normes, de prescriptions et de « bonnes pratiques ». Le fait de participer quotidiennement au travail des experts parlementaires a permis de mettre en évidence l’impossibilité de réduire celui-ci à la mise en circulation de ressources internationales. Ce travail est d’abord une entreprise faiblement internationalisée de professionnalisation du travail parlementaire via la mobilisation de ressources nationales à destination des députés comme des fonctionnaires de l’Assemblée. Je suggère d’appréhender la mise en circulation de « bonnes pratiques » non pas comme la substance des différents secteurs de l’action publique transnationale, mais plutôt comme le marqueur de leurs processus de professionnalisation respectifs.

This article analyzes the controversies about the legitimate mechanisms for the regulation of sovereign bankruptcy and sheds light on the resilience of the instruments and the actors that ensure the continuity of the global economic order at the legal and financial levels. Twice – first in 2002 at the initiative of the International Monetary Fund, and then in 2015 at the UN General Assembly – the alternatives to regulation through the financial markets, which aimed at establishing a supranational legal mechanism, have been disqualified. Based upon the analysis of some of the actors and institutions that are constitutive of international economic governance, this article sheds light on the consolidation of the economic order and on its underpinnings. Contrarily to what one may spontaneously imagine, states are not exclusively “victims” of globalized debt markets and of the vulture funds that refuse the renegotiation of debts and trigger procedures that would allow them to claim full reimbursements. In the name of their financial attractiveness and of their access to globalized capital markets, the treasury departments of various emerging states comply with the contractual formats imposed by foreign financial markets and accept a restriction of their sovereign powers.

This article analyzes the controversies about the legitimate mechanisms for the regulation of sovereign bankruptcy and sheds light on the resilience of the instruments and the actors that ensure the continuity of the global economic order at the legal and financial levels. Twice – first in 2002 at the initiative of the International Monetary Fund, and then in 2015 at the UN General Assembly – the alternatives to regulation through the financial markets, which aimed at establishing a supranational legal mechanism, have been disqualified. Based upon the analysis of some of the actors and institutions that are constitutive of international economic governance, this article sheds light on the consolidation of the economic order and on its underpinnings. Contrarily to what one may spontaneously imagine, states are not exclusively “victims” of globalized debt markets and of the vulture funds that refuse the renegotiation of debts and trigger procedures that would allow them to claim full reimbursements. In the name of their financial attractiveness and of their access to globalized capital markets, the treasury departments of various emerging states comply with the contractual formats imposed by foreign financial markets and accept a restriction of their sovereign powers.

En étudiant les controverses relatives aux mécanismes légitimes de régulation des faillites souveraines, cette enquête montre la capacité de résilience des instruments et des acteurs assurant la continuité d’un ordre marchand dans les domaines juridiques et financiers à l’échelle globale. À deux reprises, en 2002 à travers une initiative du Fonds monétaire international, puis en 2015 à l’Assemblée générale des Nations unies, les alternatives à la régulation par les marchés de capitaux, visant à installer un mécanisme juridique supranational, ont été disqualifiées. En s’appuyant sur une enquête auprès des acteurs et des institutions constitutives de la gouvernance économique internationale, l’article donne à voir le travail de consolidation de l’ordre marchand, et ce à quoi tient cet ordre global. Contrairement à une vision spontanée, les États ne sont pas exclusivement des « victimes » des marchés globalisés de la dette et des fonds « vautours » qui refusent les renégociations de dette et entament des procédures pour se faire rembourser intégralement. Au nom de leur attractivité financière et de leur accès aux ressources des marchés de capitaux globalisés, les départements du Trésor de différents États émergents se soumettent aux formats contractuels des places financières étrangères et concèdent une version restreinte de leurs pouvoirs souverains.