UNCTAD – United Nations Conference On Trade And Development

Abstract

In 1964, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was established as a special organ of the UN General Assembly (General Assembly) to advocate a basic restructuring on behalf of the developing countries. Apart from being assigned new working fields, UNCTAD was as well considerably tightened up in its institutions. Now the UNCTAD Secretariat is intended mainly to fulfill the function of an opinion-leader, with primarily analytic research work along the lines of an tOECD of the Southt. The convening of the conference was, however, preceded by lengthy disputes: the industrialized countries were only willing to establish the conference as a subsidiary body to the ECOSOC (Principal Organs, Subsidiary Organs, Treaty Bodies). Finally, agreement on the foundation as a tspecial organt of the GA was reached with a compromise: the developing countries gave up their plan to establish an organization exclusively concerned with aspects of development. Keywords: ECOSOC; GA; UNCTAD