Chapter 10 is the story of World War II reparations to the Soviet Bloc. It focuses on Finnish reparations in the 1940s, which were repaid under great economic strain. Unable to default because of geopolitical considerations, it took Finland years to grow its economy following the war because large parts of its domestic resources went to produce reparations. The country did not have the option of defaulting because of political pressure in the new geopolitical landscape that emerged from World War II. Finland managed to eventually grow its way out of debt trouble. The trajectory was suboptimal. It involved three devaluations, a fall in real wages of more than 50 per cent, and large inflationary problems. I argue that a sovereign debt default would have allowed foreign exchange to be used for domestic purposes, but because it was not possible the macroeconomic adjustment had to come from elsewhere. Finnish state survival and its geographical location meant that it chose to repay reparations rather than attempt a default.

This chapter draws on work by historians, international relations scholars, and international lawyers to demonstrate the significance of the Paris peace settlements after the First World War in accounts of international order. Building on recent historiographical debates, the chapter argues that Paris in 1919 was a site of remarkable innovations in the reinvention of international order. A wide range of actors set out new ways of thinking about international politics, established innovative institutions and transformed the conduct of international relations.

This chapter opens the third section of the book on the aftermath of the war. It addresses the end of the war and its many legacies. It starts with the armistice, and then considers the discussion about enemy aliens during the peace conference; it also explores the treaties that ended the war and their consequences for aliens, citizenship and property rights. It continues with the signing of all the final treaties, the emptying of the concentration camps and the lifting of the provisions on foreign movements, the agreement that regulated restitution or liquidation of assets, and the final exchange of populations. The chapter covers the period up to the late 1920s and deals with the transition from the state of emergency to peace, the resumption of naturalization procedures, new rules on borders and migration, new citizenship regimes that emerged from the war in both victorious and defeated countries as well as in the new successor states, and mass denaturalization and statelessness as a consequence of the emergence of new political regimes (such as the Soviet Union) or population exchange. It investigates the impact of special legislation on alien and enemy aliens on policies of migration control and explores the debate among jurists about the many violations of the conventions and human rights and the failed attempts at writing a new convention on enemy aliens.