UN General Assembly
1974

140. Our international community, aware of the necessary interaction between politics and economics, and its role in the maintenance or non-maintenance of world peace, has convened various meetings attended by all countries with a view to finding ways of remedying so many injustices from which the poor countries suffer, and to harmonizing, for the greater good of mankind, economic relations between the various States in order to bridge or reduce the gap between rich and poor countries. But the failure of the first three sessions of UNCTAD and the near failure of the First United Nations Development Decade have shown the Third World countries clearly that it is the selfish interests which alone prevail in the wealthy countries. 141. As we approach the end of the first half of the Second United Nations Development Decade, the successive crises -monetary crisis, food crisis and so forth- and the imperialist measures of a protectionist and restrictive nature undertaken by the rich countries have deeply disturbed the pattern of international economic relations.