This paper will seek to raise the legitimacy of some of the debts contracted in the recent past, not only because they have added to the misery of the poor, but because of the manner in which they have been contracted. The net effect of all debts is to impact on the capacity of any state to discharge its human rights obligations. Debt is a serious burden on states’ ability to develop, let alone meet the demands and expectations of their citizens. Burdened by debt, Zimbabwe is increasingly unable to guarantee the rights of its citizens, thereby proving the symbiotic relationship between debt and development, and between debt and human rights. This is particularly so as the country has had to adopt austerity measures with a view to restructuring its debt with the objective of enabling a developmental trajectory in the face of successive years of decline. This paper seeks to determine the extent to which sovereign debt is a burden that presents challenges to the Zimbabwean government with respect to the realisation and fulfillment of some of the human rights protected by the Constitution. This arising from the extent to which the debt burden influences the policies that the state then implements while attempting to steer the economy in the whirlwinds of debt management.
