UN General Assembly
1976

86. First and foremost, there has been the North-South dialogue in Paris, or the Conference on International Economic Co-operation, which, had it not been for the ingenuity of the co-chairmen, would have failed because of the differences on the problem of the establishment of a common fund for commodities and the problem of public debt in the third world. Although we recognize that that Conference has some merit, the fact remains that we have no illusions about the results, for we still see no sign of a genuine thaw. 87. With regard to the fourth session of UNCTAD, held at Nairobi in May 1976, it ended its work, at the eleventh hour, after stormy debates and under the pressure of world public opinion, with a consensus to which some delegations of the industrialized market-economy countries paid only lip service; indeed, shortly afterwards they rejected the consensus' in June during a ministerial session of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in Paris. The negative attitude adopted by those countries constitutes a serious hindrance to the North-South dialog in Paris.