Harvard, Virginia Publish Ochoa's Research
Forums such as the Harvard International Law Journal, the Virginia Journal of
International Law, and the highly trafficked blog Opinio Juris are featuring
Professor Christiana Ochoa's important investigations of customary international
law and the Odious Debt Doctrine.
"From Odious Debt to Odious Finance: Avoiding the Externalities of a Functional Odious Debt Doctrine" argues that democratic successors to despotic governments should not be bound by the contractual and commercial obligations of prior despotic governments if the benefits of those obligations were not passed on to the people.
The Harvard Journal of International Law selected the article for an issue forthcoming in early 2008. "'Odious Finance' is a contribution to the broader developing literature and doctrines that connect economic activity to the human rights implications of that activity," Ochoa said.
Published this fall by the Virginia Journal of International Law, The Individual and Customary International Law Formation" argues that international law will be more internally coherent and outwardly legitimate if individuals are formally recognized in the process by which customary international law is formed.
"There are disjunctures imbedded in customary international law doctrine." she said. "For example, it is problematic that states, who are often human rights violators, are the only type of entity currently recognized as empowered to form customary international law."
Further exploration of this work takes place at Indiana Law this spring in a conference, The Individual and Customary International Law Formation, to be held April 3–5, 2008 in Bloomington.
Ochoa's research also appeared—with several responses from academic peers— recently on the popular Opinio Juris law blog and on the IntLawGrrls blog.
Prior to her work at Indiana Law, Ochoa was an associate with the New York office of the global law firm, Clifford Chance, where she dedicated her efforts to capital markets and asset-backed financing of cross-border transactions. She has also worked for a number of human rights and nongovernmental organizations in Colombia, Brazil, and Nicaragua.