These restructured bonds (on which the judge is preventing payment) weren't 'pre-existing agreements' as claimed by the statement you quoted. They were agreements made _after_ the original bonds had been issued and after the government had defaulted on those bonds.

The equal treatment thing being enforced by the court is something Argentina specifically put into the bond contracts, no? Why should we expect the court not to enforce this condition? (I haven't read the contracts, so am only going from memory of what I've read elsewhere.)

They can not like it all they want, the judge enforced the law. Since there was no clause to force restructuring in the original bonds and there was a clause to prevent any bond holders from getting a better deal then the restructured bonds, Argentina was left with no option but to pay the original debt. The issue is entirely one of their making.

I can see both sides here. What surprised me is not that a judge has decided, but that a US judge has decided. It looks like an American judge decided in an American corporation's favour, and against a poorer country, to hell with the damage it will do the world's economy.

On the other hand, if the US doesn't uphold the law, then the world economy would be damaged because lending would become more unpredictable.

As it stands, though, it's easy to portray this as the US bullying Argentina in the interests of a small group of rich American citizens who behave like loan sharks. It just seems like it would be better to have an international body of law under which all international lending takes place, and when there is a dispute, a judge is chosen from an independent third party. Is there any serious effort to make that happen? I have no idea.

Thanks for the links, btw - interesting to see the complexity involved here.