[TLDR (too long didn’t read): If you are reading this, chances are you care about HR. This Reader is about a seminal 1970s UN resolution never heeded and the glimmer of hope of reviving it in 2024. For a quick overview, just read the bolded text]. Traducir/traduire los/les Readers; usar/utiliser deepl.com
1. Fifty years ago on May 1974, the General Assembly adopted a revolutionary declaration and programme of action on the establishment of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) “based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest and cooperation among all States, irrespective of their economic and social systems”. The hope was that a NIEO would “correct inequalities and redress existing injustices, make it possible to eliminate the widening gap between the developed and the developing countries and ensure steadily accelerating economic and social development and peace and justice for present and future generations”. Alas, despite the quintessential relation of this revolutionary declaration to human rights (HR), what evolved is far from what was envisioned or called–for.
The NIEO resolution envisioned or called:
2. For full and effective participation of developing countries in all phases of decision-making at the IMF and the World Bank. None has materialised. Despite repeated commitments, the representation of developing countries in international financial institutions has remained largely unchanged. The governments of the largest developed countries continue to hold veto powers in the decision-making bodies of these institutions.
3. For appropriate urgent measures to mitigate adverse consequences for development arising from the burden of external debt. These included debt cancellations, moratoria, rescheduling or interest subsidisation. Failure to fulfil these promises forced developing countries to borrow from commercial sources at exorbitantly high interest rates with shorter maturity terms and no mechanism for restructuring. This has exacerbated the debt crisis.
4. For the accumulation of buffer stocks of commodities in order to offset market fluctuations, combat inflationary tendencies and ensure grain and food security. Developing countries are yet far from attaining food security. Take, for instance, Africa that turned from a net-exporter to a net-importer of food since the adoption of the NIEO resolution.
5. For improved access to markets in developed countries through the progressive removal of tariff and non-tariff barriers and of restrictive business practices. Yet, since the late 1970s, there has been a resurgence of protectionism in OECD countries.
6. For fairer trade relations. But trade protectionism under different guises, including health and sanitary standards, persisted even after the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Take, for instance, the issue of strengthened intellectual property rights to be reinforced in the WTO’s agreement on Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs). Actually, these rights have raised the costs of medicines, of acquiring medical technology, have reduced technology transfers and have raised TNCs’ monopoly powers. Even worse, developed countries refused to relax TRIPs to allow developing countries’ access to Covid-19 vaccines, drugs and testing technologies. TNCs continue to influence and shape domestic and international politics to their interests. TNCs have governments in their pockets –just witness their consistent success at dodging tax payments. Do not forget that a stringent WTO text on TRIPS was adopted at the request of TNCs, especially to protect monopoly profits of Big Pharma.*
*: As is no news to you in this context: The WTO is heavily influenced by major banks and TNCs who exert political influence to liberalize trade and investment; to obtain subsidies; to reduce their tax burdens; to dilute working conditions and to relax environmental protection.
7. Through the World Economic Forum (WEF), TNCs are now setting the global economic agenda. Privatisation, liberalisation and deregulation, as well as PPPs and multistakeholder platforms have significantly eroded the state from its customary intervention in regulating the economy and promoting redistribution –wither the NIEO (and HR!).
8. The erosion of the state as an institution becomes visible to us in underfunded social programs, a smaller public sector, weakened regulatory structures, foregone infrastructure projects, public assets sales and continued privatisation.
9. TNCs continue to take over the global economic agenda setting through their influence in the WEF, through non-inclusive informal country groupings as is the case of the G7 and the G20. Add to this their questionable legitimacy in influencing formal bodies like the OECD and Europe’s Bank for International Settlements (i.e., acting as norm-setters). In all this, developing countries remain absent and/or badly underrepresented and disadvantaged.
10. Just a few points to close
- The United States took the position that ‘it cannot and does not accept any implication that the world is now embarked on the establishment of something called the New International Economic Order’.
- The NIEO effectively went into oblivion after 1981 when President Reagan declared: “We should not seek to create new institutions”.
- The global economy continues to struggle under what truly is a ‘non-system’.
- We still do not have a global financial governance mechanism to fairly deal with mounting global crises.
- What is most disappointing may not be the failure of the NIEO as such, but the hope that it inspired.
A bleak future?
11. Initiated by Progressive International, delegates from over 25 countries of the Global South assembled in Havana on 27 January 2023 to declare their intent to build a NIEO fit for the 21st century, countering the TNCs’ global economic agenda behind the WEF. The signatories of ‘NIEO-Mark II’ seek to rebuild the collective power of emerging and developing countries for fundamentally transforming the international system, and for alternative ways to respond to global crises.
12. Amidst all the current crises, the UN Secretary-General has called for a Summit of the Future to be held on 22-23 September 2024. What is the chance that UN member states will agree to the ‘Pact for the Future’ being negotiated? To what extent will the Pact accommodate NIEO-Mark II? What is the chance that the nations will agree to the Pact for the Future? Fat chance… Mind you, the world is now more divided than it was in the 1970s when NIEO-Mark I was first proposed. (all excerpted from A. Chowdhury) …Brave new world!
Claudio Schuftan, Ho Chi Minh City
Your comments are welcome at schuftan@gmail.com
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