The first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), held in 1964, is often regarded as a pivotal moment in the history of relations between Global North and Global South. Yet there ...were a handful of countries at UNCTAD that sought to present themselves as not fitting into this system. These countries included Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Using Australia as a case study, this paper will demonstrate that the dominant dichotomy oversimplifies the developmental arguments that were presented at UNCTAD. Australia's policy at the Conference, which was generally referred to as the "Middle Zone," revolved around presenting Australia as being neither a "developed" nor "developing" country. By examining the Australian arguments, a more nuanced understanding of North-South relations is possible. Ultimately, the Australian case study provides a new way of understanding the significance of UNCTAD in the history of international development. Keywords: United Nations, Australia, development, Australian history, World history, UNCTAD.
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This study examined the influence of the disruption of COVID-19 on maritime shipping activities in Africa. Particular attention was paid to the variations in the performance of selected African ...countries in container ship calls, container throughput, and liner shipping connectivity between 2019 and 2020. Eighteen (18) African countries were selected from all the geographical regions of the continent based on data availability. Secondary data was drawn from records of maritime trade in the publications of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) (2019, 2020, and 2021) as well as World Bank Development Indicators for the selected countries. Explorative data analysis was used to organize and present the data. Results showed that the North African region alone recorded an improved percentage of container ship calls in 2020 than in 2019. Results by individual countries showed that Ghana recorded the highest positive increase in ship calls in 2020 from her record in 2019. In addition, Morocco, recorded the highest container throughput in 2020 than the record in 2019 while all the countries exhibited a winding record of liner connectivity between the last quarter of 2019 through the last quarter of 2020.
The study concluded that the disruption of maritime activity by the COVID-19 pandemic had a mixed impact on African countries’ performance. However, Africa has the potential to be more resilient to unforeseen shocks and become competitive if it is more integrated into the global supply chain and deploys modern and efficient technology and innovation to the shipping business more than it ever did.
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This article provides an empirical investigation of the cooperation among intergovernmental organisations (IOs) in global cultural governance. The existing scientific literature has not yet taken up ...the inter-organisational cooperation as a serious topic of research and the present contribution aims to fill this gap. Based on an actor-centred constructivism, the article seeks to address inter-organisational cooperation as an observable empirical phenomenon, to explore when and why the cooperation between IOs risks not lasting and to understand why the dynamics of inter-organisational cooperation in cultural affairs have a specific-time limit. The focus will be on two cases: the European Union-Mercosur audiovisual programme and the United Nations interagency group on creative industries. As such, the article is more concerned with analysing the political micro-foundations through which the cooperation among IOs takes place and with exploring the factors, which contribute to not establish sustainable cooperative arrangements.
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Since the early 2000s, several intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) have advanced the idea that the creative economy could be a ‘feasible development option’. The United Nations Conference on Trade ...and Development (UNCTAD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) took the lead by preparing the 2008 and 2010 Creative Economy Reports, whereas the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and UNDP executed the 2013 report. The article – based on an actor-centred institutionalism – explores the role IGOs have played in the promulgation of the ‘creative economy’ policy agenda. Through a socio-political analysis, we reveal how IGOs act and interact with each other vis-à-vis ‘creative economy’ policy agenda making. On one hand, the article seeks to highlight why and how IGOs include the creative economy within their priorities and use the concept, influence or challenge its orientations. On the other hand, it aims to examine their ability to act in common in order to globalize the ‘creative economy’ policy agenda and create new forms of cultural industries governance.
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How was ‘international trade’ between former European empires and their former colonies in Africa governed after decolonisation? In the 1960s, the vast majority of African countries became ...independent, and so a new arrangement was necessary to govern their economic relations with Europe. The Yaoundé Conventions were then concluded between the European Community (EC) and the bloc of postcolonial African countries. Specialised literature provides comprehensive accounts of the Yaoundé Conventions. However, little is known about the role of law and lawyers in their making and governance. Part of this story concerns political and intellectual struggles in the legal profession about which projects, ideas, and norms would be applicable. Another part concerns the work of lawyers to organise those policies, theories and visions into an emerging conception and to employ it to influence the production and management of the Yaoundé Conventions. This article combines historical and socio-legal approaches to show that a distinct legal conception of regional trade agreements—called here the ‘development framework’—was pivotal to the design and application of the Yaoundé Conventions. This conception was primarily advanced and persuasively used by European and African lawyers. This contrasts with the conventional view that trade agreements are variations on a single legal concept. It is concluded that EC–Africa regionalism was a singular experiment, due significantly to the unique features of this legal conception.
Can supranational actors influence domestic policy? In this article, we study how international organizations have sought to shape the contents of domestic laws aimed at protecting foreign ...investment. Traditionally, the influence of international organizations on public policy has been assumed to run through loan conditionalities. We build on a recent strand of literature indicating that international organizations can also influence public policy through technical assistance. Empirically, we present a cross-sectional mapping of the protection that states offer foreign investors in domestic investment laws, and a mapping of the advisory activities of the three main organizations offering technical assistance on foreign investment laws: the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, and the World Bank. We find that there are significant variations in protection offered under domestic investment laws, and variation in international organizations’ technical assistance over time and across organizations. To explore technical assistance as a causal mechanism for influence on public policy more closely in this field, we conduct a case study of the development of domestic investment legislation in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Abstract Sustainable green finance is often promoted as an innovative tool to deal with environmental problems. This paper assesses policy proposals at the level of the EU and UNCTAD’s Green New ...Deal, specifically regarding its suggestions in the field of sustainable finance. It provides a theoretical framework in the tradition of critical political economy and combines a global perspective with regulation theory in order to assess different strategies in the area of sustainable finance. The respective proposals and initiatives can be considered as possible blueprints for hegemonic strategies within different contexts. However, the analysis suggests both proposals, although substantially different and representing different entities in the international political economy, fail to provide a systematic answer to the problems of a highly unequal over-use of natural and environmental resources at a global level.
Resumo Sustentáveis, respectivamente, as finanças verdes são frequentemente promovidas como uma ferramenta inovadora para lidar com problemas ambientais. Este artigo avalia as propostas de políticas do novo acordo verde da UE e da UNCTAD, especificamente no que diz respeito às suas sugestões no domínio das finanças sustentáveis. O artigo fornece um referencial teórico na tradição da economia política crítica e combina uma perspectiva global com a teoria da regulação para avaliar diferentes estratégias na área de finanças sustentáveis. As respectivas propostas e iniciativas podem ser consideradas como possíveis modelos de estratégias hegemônicas em diferentes contextos. No entanto, a análise sugere que ambas as propostas, embora substancialmente diferentes e representando diferentes entidades na economia política internacional, não fornecem uma resposta sistemática aos problemas de um uso excessivo e altamente desigual global dos recursos naturais e ambientais.
Im März 1964 begann in Genf die erste Welthandelskonferenz - eine Konferenz, die nicht zuletzt durch den Zusammenschluss zahlreicher Schwellen- und Entwicklungsländer zur Gruppe 77 die Aufmerksamkeit ...der Weltöffentlichkeit erregte. Sönke Kunkel, Historiker an der Jacobs Universität Bremen, zeigt, dass mit dem Treffen in Genf nicht nur ein neuer Diskurs über Globalisierung entstand, sondern auch ein Prozess in Gang kam, der die Transformation des internationalen Systems beschleunigte, neue Akteure begünstigte und damit das Spielfeld der globalen Politik nachhaltig veränderte.
While there is a considerable degree of consensus about the economic determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI), the role of socio-political factors has only recently come under scrutiny. In ...this study, we build upon research on one such factor, human rights. Specifically, whereas extant research into FDI examines aggregate investment indices, we seek to disaggregate the analysis of FDI to further assess the role of human rights, namely physical integrity rights, in investment decisions. As FDI is a heterogeneous enterprise, we posit that the importance of human rights varies in part due to the nature of the industrial sector. In particular, two factors that vary across industrial sectors - skill requirements and the degree to which societal acceptance or "social license" is sought - likely increase the salience of human rights concerns in investment decisions. To empirically assess these linkages, we analyze U.S. FDI across 10 different sectors. We find human rights to be a significant determinant of FDI across sectors that value higher skills and integration within the host society. PUBLICATION ABSTRACT
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This interview stems from the interest of four Brazilian scholars in contributing to the study of foreign policy through dialogue with practitioners. As the study about foreign policy becomes more ...reflexive and critical, we turned to a Brazilian diplomat, Rubens Ricupero, who based on his vast and often difficult experience, has written about his interactions with the international world and strived to establish a dialogue with the academic world. Between May and July 2021, Ambassador Ricupero shared with us his views on the difficulties and possibilities of dialogue regarding multilateral agreements and institutions, such as the GATT and the UNCTAD.
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