A New International Economic Order for Sustainable Development

Although tremendous developments in science and technology, especially in the means of travel and communications, have tied all the peoples of the earth in an unprecedented intimacy of contact, mutuality of vulnerability, and interdependence of welfare, we are still living in a world fragmented into numerous independent States all of which claim to be sovereign and answerable to no one except their own authority. Despite all the denunciations of the doctrine of sovereignty as “unworkable”, “misleading” and even “dangerous political dogma,” which no longer corresponds with the facts of international life, it remains the very basis of international relations and is accepted as one of its most sacred principles.1 In the Eastern Carelia case,2 the Permanent Court of International Justice declared the independence of States as “a fundamental principle of international law”3 and asserted in the Lotus case that “restrictions upon the independence of States cannot... be presumed”. Reiterated in numerous international arbitral and judicial decisions, sovereignty of States has been enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations which declares in unmistakable terms that “the Organisation is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.” (Article 2, paragraph l).4 Science and technology may have made our planet a small global village absolutely inter-dependent with a common future, but our world is still a divided world with innumerable problems. It is beginning to be realized, however, that we must face our problems in unison if we are not to perish all together.