•HRES 586 IH 
Whereas, notwithstanding that the country currently holds at 
least $45,000,000,000 in foreign currency reserves, Ar-
gentina refuses to pay more than 100 United States 
court judgments in total exceeding $5,000,000,000, with 
further direct and indirect costs to U.S. bondholders, in-
vestors, and taxpayers arising from Argentina’s default 
and non-negotiated debt restructuring; 
Whereas, notwithstanding Argentina’s express commitments 
in the Fiscal Agency Agreement governing its bond in-
debtedness to waive claims of sovereign immunity and 
submit to the jurisdiction of the State of New York in 
order to gain access to capital markets in the United 
States, Argentina now contests and refuses to honor 
these judgments; 
Whereas Argentina has similarly dishonored claims brought 
by United States companies and others before the Inter-
national Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes 
(ICSID) and other international arbitral forums, which 
have collectively issued awards against Argentina totaling 
over $900,000,000; 
Whereas Argentina’s failure to comply with arbitral awards 
in favor of United States creditors violates Argentina’s 
obligations under the Treaty Between the United States 
of America and the Argentine Republic Concerning the 
Reciprocal Encouragement and Protection of Investment, 
also known as the U.S.-Argentina Bilateral Investment 
Treaty; 
Whereas Argentina’s disregard for established international 
norms is apparent in its disproportionate share of cases 
brought before ICSID, where, among G–20 countries, Ar-
gentina accounts for 78 percent of all pending cases; 
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•HRES 586 IH 
Whereas Argentina actively evades the judgments rendered by 
United States courts and other adjudicatory bodies and 
thus abusing the immunity of the Bank for International 
Settlements (BIS), and by secreting its assets in ways 
and places that frustrate the enforcement of United 
States judgments and arbitral awards; 
Whereas Argentina’s dishonest and disreputable conduct en-
courages other nations to pursue comparable tactics for 
dishonoring their international financial commitments, 
for example Ecuador, which in 2008 selectively defaulted 
on its sovereign bond obligations, citing Argentina’s con-
duct as precedent; 
Whereas the international financial community, including the 
IMF, has criticized Argentina for its lack of fiscal trans-
parency and its manipulation of key economic statistics, 
including in particular a gross understatement of Argen-
tina’s inflation and exaggeration of economic growth; 
Whereas Argentina has imposed fines and initiated criminal 
enforcement action against independent economists who 
publish inflation statistics that differ from the official re-
ports; 
Whereas the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has iden-
tified Argentina’s failure to comply with 47 out of its 49 
recommendations, the worst evaluation of any G–20 na-
tion, highlighting the country’s regulatory shortcomings 
and the vulnerability of Argentina’s financial institutions 
to terrorist financing and money laundering; 
Whereas Argentina refuses to comply with IMF membership 
requirements, including but not limited to Article IV re-
views, which allow the IMF to accurately assess a coun-
try’s economic health, development, and policies; 
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•HRES 586 IH 
Whereas the actions of Argentina since its 2001 declaration 
of default have imposed billions of dollars of financial 
losses, not only within the United States but throughout 
global financial markets, which could deprive more de-
serving sovereign borrowers of access to capital by under-
mining confidence in the markets for and legal enforce-
ability of sovereign debt; and 
Whereas Argentina’s failure to comply with its obligations 
under international investment treaties threatens to un-
dermine the confidence of investors that such treaties af-
ford them a meaningful remedy against unjust expropria-
tion or other unfair or inequitable treatment by the 
states in which they invest, thus undermining justice and 
deterring the investment that is necessary to stimulate 
worldwide economic growth: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) declares that the Argentine Republic has re-
peatedly and willfully disregarded the rule of law in 
the United States; 
(2) declares that the refusal of Argentina to 
honor and satisfy the judgments of United States 
courts and arbitral awards threatens the economic 
well-being of the United States and undermines the 
integrity and efficacy of such courts; 
(3) declares that Argentina should immediately 
honor its obligations to United States bondholders 
and investors; 
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•HRES 586 IH 
(4) declares that the United States should work 
with other IMF member states to restrict Argen-
tina’s access to IMF benefits and prerogatives until 
Argentina has complied with its obligations as an 
IMF member; 
(5) declares that the United States should reso-
lutely maintain its policy of opposing further loans 
to Argentina by the World Bank and the Inter- 
American Development Bank (excepting those rare 
circumstances in which loans are targeted at the 
very poor) and that it should vigorously encourage 
other countries to do the same; 
(6) declares that officials of the United States 
Federal Reserve System who sit on the Board of Di-
rectors of the BIS should endeavor to ensure that 
Argentina is prohibited from continuing to exploit 
the immunities of this organization for the purpose 
of evading the judgments of United States courts; 
and 
(7) declares that Argentina’s behavior is not be-
fitting a member of the G–20 Group of Finance 
Ministers and Central Bank Governors, and that the 
United States should work with other G–20 mem-
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•HRES 586 IH 
bers to re-evaluate Argentina’s membership in that 
body. 
Æ 
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