Pari Passu Poignancy

It is too easy to miss poignant moments in the news avalanche of Argentina debt litigation. Here is one from Judge Griesa's monologue at the July 22 hearing:

I can't remember whether it was 2010 or 2011, but thereabouts, the attorneys for the plaintiffs requested the Court to recognize a provision which had been in the contractual documents all along but had not been relied on, and that is the pari passu provisions, essentially meaning if the republic paid certain kinds of debts, there had to be a recognition -- and I'm not trying to get into the arithmetic -- there had to be a recognition of the rights of people with judgments under the pari passu clauses, whatever they were.

Whatever they were indeed.