UN General Assembly
1996

has expanded to the extent that transactions between their subsidiaries account for one quarter of world trade. In the face of the fluctuation and volatility of international electronic transactions, the central banks of the most developed countries already have difficulty controlling the exchange rates of their currencies or the level of interest rates. The recent establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) is seen as the institutional culmination of this global trend towards liberalization of trade in goods and services and as a force conducive to interdependence. Accordingly, globalization, despite the various rates at which it operates in different parts of the world — from the slow, deliberate pace at which it proceeds in countries with agrarian economies to the dizzying rapidity of its progress in those possessing advanced technologies — appears to be the distinguishing mark of 4 the post-cold-war era. This phenomenon increasingly lends itself to the dominance of a system of echoes and reflections between nations, of all manner of interrelationships, which in theory should contribute to international stability, since according to classical doctrine,