The League of Nations period The era of the United Nations 2. The notion of global public goods 3. This book aims to demonstrate the role of international organisations, particularly the United Nations, in developing universal values on natural resource and global public goods management for sustainable development. Key values are international management of the global commons, a duties-based concept of national sovereignty and recognition of the notion of global public goods. These values are shown to derive from the same generic tradition and movement which attempts to foster economic and social progress, while paying increasing attention to equitable and sustainable development.
Introduction See summary on cover page.
Formative Phases of International Organisation Concepts of public goods and public commons were already employed in ancient Greek and Roman discourses and traces can be found in Roman law. Ideas to organise international society for the sake of peace are as old as the notion of the sovereign state. Early examples include De Sully s Grand Dessein de Henri IV and those of Abb Saint Pierre following Louis XIV s wars. The Hague Peace Conferences and the establishment of the League of Nations in 1919. An early and authoritative account of factual interdependence and the necessity for international collaboration can be found in L.S. Woolf s book International Government , published in 1916.