Richard Toye

Developing Multilateralism: The Havana Charter and the Fight for the International Trade Organization, 1947–1948

the World Trade Organization (WTO) was established in x995j it nas been the subject of vocal, and sometimes violent, international protest. Much of the criticism has charged the WTO regime with placing developing countries at various kinds of unfair disadvantage. Yet complaints about international economic organizations treatment of poor countries long predated the WTO. Such issues had affected the negotiations, in the years immediately after the Second World War, which aimed at establishing an international trade organization (ITO). Thus, although the attempt to create the ITO failed, it left a lasting legacy. Not only was the plan a precursor of the WTO, but the supposedly interim general agreement on tariffs and trade (GATT), negotiated during 1947 in parallel with discussions on the proposed charter for the ITO, continued as the basis on which world trade was regulated, until superseded by the WTO. The GATT rules of 1947, as subsequently amended, were nested inside the Marrakesh agreement of 1994 as part of that single agreement. Hence, the spirit of the GATT and, to some degree, that of the ITO lives on in the WTO.

How the UN moved from full employment to economic development

Abstract Economic development was a topic of small consequence to the United Nations (UN) in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Yet by the late 1950s it had become one of the UNs over-arching purposes in its economic and social work. The reasons for this considerable (and to date permanent) change have not attracted much attention, because it is now assumed that economic development is the natural goal of UN economic efforts. This article offers an explanation of how this came about. Since the days of the League of Nations, international economic cooperation had centred on charting the spread of recession from one industrial country to another, and proposing counter-measures. Keynesian macroeconomics transformed this discourse, but at the same time opened up political divisions between the United States and the economically shattered nations of Western Europe. In the context of the Cold War, Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld actively guided the UN away from economic policies of ‘extreme Keynesianism’ and towards issues of ‘economic development’. Development was an idea that not only united the US and its allies, but also appealed to the former colonies then swelling the UNs ranks.

THE LABOUR PARTY'S EXTERNAL ECONOMIC POLICY IN THE 1940s

This article challenges the view that, in accepting the 1945 American loan and its attendant commitments to international economic liberalization, the Labour party easily fell in behind the Atlanticist approach to post-war trade and payments. It is suggested instead that Labours sometimes seemingly paradoxical behaviour in office was driven, not only by the very tough economic conditions it faced, but also by a fundamental contradiction inherent in its desire to ‘plan’ at both domestic and international levels. This contradiction – the ‘planning paradox’ – is explored with reference to pre-war and war-time developments, including Labours reactions to the Keynes and White plans of 1943, and to the Bretton Woods conference of 1944. The decision to accept the US loan, and with it the Bretton Woods agreements, is then examined within this context. Finally, an assessment is made of whether, in this key area of policy, Labours pre-1945 deliberations were effective in preparing the party for the challenges it would face in government.

From New Era to Neo-liberalism: US Strategy on Trade, Finance and Development in the United Nations, 1964–82

Abstract This article charts the history of the US strategy and This article charts the history of the US strategy and tactics on issues of trade, finance and development in the UN from 1964 to 1982, to explain how initial diplomatic defeats in the Kennedy and Johnson eras had been neutralised by the 1980s. Many saw the birth of UNCTAD as the start of a new era in international cooperation in the field of trade and development. For the US, however, it was a set-back to its traditional trade policy, sustained because of fears of Soviet expansion in the Third World and the uncooperativeness of de Gaulles France. When the oil price crisis put the US under greater immediate pressure, the Nixon and Ford administrations responded more robustly. Yet it was not their more aggressive responses that saved the US. Rather, it was disunity within Third World ranks, and the economic circumstances that made debtors of many formerly militant developing countries.

From Multilateralism to Modernisation: US Strategy on Trade, Finance and Development in the United Nations, 1945–63

Abstract In the fist two decades of the UNs existence, the US strategy for managing the Organisation on issues of trade, finance and development underwent two major reversals. After deliberately nesting the new international economic institutions inside the UN, the US had moved to a defensive strategy on economic issues in the UN by the mid-1950s. One cause was the outbreak of the Cold War and the fear of ‘subversives’ in the UN. Another reason was that US pressure for European decolonisation, combined with UN multilateral procedures, empowered underdeveloped countries that contested the norm of non-discrimination in trade. As the number of developing countries in the UN grew, however, the US changed strategy once again. President Kennedy took a series of new initiatives for economic development in the UN—the World Food Programme (WFP) and the UN Decade of Development. Justified in terms of Rostows modernisation paradigm, Kennedys revival of US leadership on development finance in the UN retained a strong anti-communist motivation and remained basically defensive in character.