Dr Cristian Dimitriu

Research Topic

Ethics of International Lending and Fair Trade

Project Outline

Sovereign lending and borrowing typically involve huge amounts of money, and represent a big burden for many poor states. However, not much has been said about these financial practices in the global justice literature, and the legal literature has only narrowly focused on this topic.

In my postdoctoral research at Justitia Amplificata I aim to explore some of the normative issues underlying international lending. Specifically, I will do two things. First, I will look at the conditions under which sovereign debts are not morally binding for a state. Second, I will propose the moral framework that the international lending system should adopt in order for it to be morally acceptable.

My second project involves a discussion on international fair trade. The current literature on fair trade relies on all kinds of normative notions to analyze this topic, including “exploitation”, “coercion” and “responsibility”. However, since these notions are seldom properly understood, we do not yet have a clear understanding of them, or of what fair international trade consists in. My research aims to develop and clarify these notions, and to rely on them to develop a conception of fair trade.

Scholarly Profile

Cristian Dimitriu received his PhD in Philosophy at the University of Toronto. His thesis was titled “Odious Debts and Global Justice”. He worked as a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Kansas, where he taught courses on Political Philosophy, Global Justice and Normative Ethics. Cristian was also a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Guelph, in Canada, and at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina.

Selected Publications

Some of his recent publications include:

1. “Odious Debts: A Moral Account”, Jurisprudence: An International Journal of Legal and Political Thought (Taylor & Francis)

2. “Why should we honor the debts incurred by previous generations?” Ethical Perspectives, 22 (3): 369-393, (2015)

3. “Fair Trade and Exploitation”, Revista Internacional de Filosofía Daimon, 62:101-108, (2014)