Commodity conflict revisited: From Nairobi to Belgrade

Abstract

The Seventh Summit Conference of nearly one hundred Non-Aligned countries concluded its session in New Delhi on 12 March 1983, and issued its customary declaration on economic questions. These countries gathered again in Belgrade, together with the countries of the two superpower blocs and the few uncommitted ones, at the Sixth Session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD VI) in June 1983. In Commodity Conflict: the political economy of international commodity negotiations, I analysed the history of negotiations on International Commodity Agreements (ICAs) and also examined how well these had fared in theiractual operation. This was published shortly after UNCTAD IV (Nairobi, May 1976), at which the developing countries made commodity problems the centrepiece of negotiation with the developed world and fought hard for two things: an Integrated Programme for Commodities (IPC) and the establishment of a Common Fund to help in financing buffer stocks. Seven years have elapsed between UNCTADs IV and VI. The seven years before UNCTAD IV (1969-76) were troubled times for the oil-importing developing countries; they had to contend with massive rises in oil prices in addition to their persistent commodity problems of instability in prices, declining real prices, shrinking markets, and ever-increasing obstacles to the export of manufactured goods. The success of OPEC in the early 1970s had an euphoric effect on the developing countries which saw visions of a New International Economic Order (NIEO) for the whole world. Today, that brave new Order seems as faraway from becoming reality as it was in 1974. If anything, the prospects have worsened; the world has become more protectionist and more autarkic and the developing countries are faced with insoluble debt repayment problems, on top of their usual