UN General Assembly
1996

misery. The chilling numbers speak for themselves - more is spent on servicing debt than on financing basic programmes for health care, education and humanitarian relief. The reductions in the commitments for concessional assistance by almost all the industrial countries mark a turning point in international development cooperation. Bluntly put, the rich have reneged on solemn commitments and pledges. The cut-backs in pledges for the replenishment of international development assistance and the unwillingness to clear earlier arrears, triggered by a unilateral decision of the major contributor to scale back its contributions, have led other donors to scale back their contributions as well. Now that the concept of globalism is so intimately linked with international trade, it is important critically to examine the realities of this so called “free trade”. The painfully long history of the Uruguay Round negotiations should have forewarned us that the WTO, although established as a rules-based multilateral organization to regulate international trade, will become answerable only to the world’s wealthiest economic Powers. Like the Bretton Woods institutions, the WTO remains outside any