Rückführung staatlicher Altschulden als Rechtsproblem

The work is concerned with legal issues of the return of past government debts, i.e. the reduction of the governmental debt level. This subject has not been awarded sufficient attention in research and practice to date, although it has a high significance for the community.
The work outlines the basic fundamentals of current government debt law, which makes the current practice of continual debt restructuring of the existing government debt possible and encourages it. On this basis, the current law is investigated as to its regulations on debt reduction. The result is a very limited set of norms. Government debt law is "blind in one eye". It only considers new net debt and ignores past debts. By means of an analysis of debt stock and risks of past debt, the author establishes the need for a reshaping of government debt law and outlines the basic requirements of a realistic debt return law.