Professor Allison Powers Useche recently published an article in the journal Diplomatic History entitled “Defining Dispossession: Arbitration and the Transformation of Sovereign Debt.”
In this article, Professor Useche examines how nineteenth-century arbitration tribunals—particularly the 1868 United States–Mexico Claims Commission—reshaped the meaning of “sovereign debt” and “dispossession.” She traces how international law transformed local disputes into financial obligations between nations, revealing how new legal frameworks of arbitration helped redefine the boundaries of sovereignty, property, and empire in the Americas.
Professor Powers Useche was also recently interviewed by legal historian Edward Jones Corredera of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law about their recent books, Arbitrating Empire and Odious Debt. The transcript of their conversation will appear in the Toynbee Prize Foundation’s Interview Series on recent works in global history. See more about the interview here.
Read “Defining Dispossession: Arbitration and the Transformation of Sovereign Debt” in Diplomatic History (Oxford University Press, 2025).