New world economic order
The New World Economic Order ( NWWO ; English New International Economic Order - NIEO ; French Nouvel ordre économique international - NOEI ) describes a plan to reform international economic relations between developing countries and industrialized nations in favor of developing countries.
The steadily increasing foreign debt and the existing differences in economic power and living conditions between industrialized and developing countries have led to the demand for a change in world economic relations . The original idea goes back to the Havana Conference in 1948. A catalog of demands has been drawn up by developing countries since the early 1960s. The demand for a New World Economic Order was formally expressed by developing countries for the first time in 1973 after UNCTAD III in Santiago de Chile as a reaction to the oil crisis . On May 9, 1974, the UN General Assembly passed the “Declaration on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order”, in which the developing countries had more favorable conditions in raw materials policy and international trade , increased industrialization , general debt relief , and a change in the world monetary system , demand higher development aid and a new law of the sea . On December 12, 1974, the UN General Assembly passed resolution 3281, the “Charter on the Economic Rights and Duties of States”. For this purpose, UNCTAD meets every 4 years.
An essential element of the demands is the "Integrated Raw Materials Program", with which more stable and more reasonable prices are to be achieved for 18 raw materials. Two tasks are to be accomplished from a common fund :
- the formation of compensation stocks (so-called “ buffer stocks ”) in order to compensate for price fluctuations, which is to be achieved by buying up raw materials when the world market price is low and selling them when the world market price is high.
- Research, development and production improvement for raw materials for which no compensating bearings come into question are to be financed in order to improve market structures and competitiveness
An agreement on price stabilization through compensation bearings currently only exists for rubber ; however, this expired in 2001 (cf. German Bundestag 2002, p. 3). There are conventions that concern olive oil , beef , wheat , jute , tropical wood , sugar , coffee and cocoa , but they do not contain any market-regulating provisions, but serve to promote market transparency and the exchange of information.
criticism
The industrialized countries see in the integrated raw materials program above all the excessive financial requirements for storage, the risk of excess production , the artificially high raw material costs , with corresponding disadvantages for the end consumers and the punishment of the raw material-rich developing countries at the expense of the poorer. That is why the Federal Republic of Germany has developed its own stabilization model for raw material revenues. According to this, all developing countries that generate more than 50% of their export earnings from raw materials and have a decline in exports that exceeds a certain threshold should receive particularly cheap loans. However, criticism of the NWWO also comes from the developing countries, as they see no solution to the existing grievances in it, because in their eyes the current global economic interdependence of the developing countries is the cause of the problems. They therefore demand a decoupling from the world market and independent development in the economic, social and cultural area, based on the use of national resources ( decoupling strategy ).
literature
- Moss, Alfred George (Ed.): A new international economic order: selected documents 1945–1975 , New York: UNITAR, 1976
- Addo, Herb (Ed.) Transforming the World Economy. Nine critical essays in the New international economic order , London 1984
- Rist, Gilbert : Le développement, Histoire d'une croyance occidentale , Presses de Sciences Po, Paris, 1996 - English edition: The History of Development: From Western Origins to Global Faith , 3rd edition, London: Zed Books, 2008, ISBN 1-84813-189-5 (detailed analysis in Chapter 9)