and the UN the industrial revolution 250 years ago. Lit.: Fues, T.: Global Governance beyond It remains to be seen if the “great global the G8: Reform Prospects for the Summit transformation” will lead to “turbulent” Architecture, in: IPG, 2/2007, 11–24; Ken- multipolarity or to stable arrangements nedy, P.: The Parliament of Man: The and the Quest for World of cooperative multilateralism. Government, London 2006; United Nations - UN and Global Governance General Assembly: 2005 World Summit Outcome, UN Doc. A/RES/60/1, 16 Sep- The United Nations continues to play an tember 2005; Weiss, T.G./Daws, S.: World ambiguous role in the Politics: Continuity and Change since 1945, process. While it provides an indispen- in: Weiss, T.G./Daws, S. (eds.): The Oxford sable forum for dialogue, joint learning Handbook on the United Nations, Oxford and collective action in selected policy 2007, 3-38. fields, the world organization has not Internet: a) Information on globalization (yet) become the strategic centre for and references on the website of the Global global governance (Kennedy 2006). Policy Forum: www.globalpolicy.org/glob- Member states make use of it as it suits alization.html; b) information on the Millen- their (short-term) national priorities, but nium Summit and the Millennium Declara- are not willing to invest the political and tion: www.un.org/millennium/index.html; financial resources needed for UN lead- c) Millennium Development Goals: www.un. org/millenniumgoals/index.shtml; ership in meeting global challenges. Af- d) Global Compact: www.unglobalcompact. ter the upswing of multilateralism in the org. 1990s, national prerogatives have again become the key agenda of state actors. Main factors of the present stalemate are: Group of 77 and the UN - The terrorist attacks of 9/11 (2001) have strengthened the unipolar orien- The Group of 77 – comprising today tation of US foreign policies. The en- 133 states – was founded on 12 May suing war against Iraq without UN 1964 during the first UN Conference on mandate has paralyzed intergovern- (→ UNCTAD), mental consensus-building in the UN. when 75 developing countries from Af- - Primary concerns for state security rica, Asia and Latin America united to have squeezed political spaces for the so-called “Group of 75”. At the end non-state actors in the UN. Calls for of the conference, however, they had increased participation of parliaments, grown to a “Group of 77” as South Ko- civil society and business have been rea, South Vietnam and joined sidelined by member states. the group, and New Zealand left the - Industrialized countries are not will- group (the 77 states: from Latin Amer- ing to grant the UN a coordinating ica and the Caribbean: 21; from Africa: role in international economic poli- 32; from Asia and the Near East: 22; cies. They rather opt for new variants and from Europe: Cyprus and Yugosla- of club governance under the um- via). brella of the G8 (Fues 2007). This has Their goals are described in the “Joint deepened the North-South divide in Declaration of the Seventy-Seven De- global politics. veloping Countries made at the Conclu- All states should reconsider their reser- sion of the United Nations Conference vations towards the UN. Increasing on Trade and Development” of 15 June threats to human survival and global 1964 as follows: stability can only be dealt with effec- “The developing countries regard tively, if the world organization is trans- their own unity, the unity of the sev- formed into the strategic centre of a de- enty-five, as the outstanding feature of mocratic global governance system. this conference. This unity is sprung out Thomas Fues of the fact that facing the basic problems of development they have a common in- 207 Group of 77 and the UN terest in a new policy for international make the work of this group more effi- trade and development. They believe cient, it was replaced by a “Group of 6” that it is this unity that has given clarity in March of the same year. It was this and coherence to the discussions of this group that worked out the draft of the Conference … This unity is also an in- “Declaration and Programme of Action strument for enlarging the area of co- on the Establishment of a New Interna- operative endeavor in the international tional Economic Order” (→ Internation- field and for securing mutually benefi- al Economic Relations and New Interna- cent relationships with the rest of the tional Economic Order (NIEO)) and the world … The seventy-five developing → “Charter of Economic Rights and countries, on the occasion of this decla- Duties of States”. In March 1975 the ration, pledge themselves to maintain, “Group of 27” was established, which foster and strengthen this unity in the functions since then as steering commit- future.” (Joint Declaration of the Sev- tee of the Group of 77. Beside being enty-Five Developing Countries …, present at the main seat of UNCTAD in Geneva, 15 June 1964, para. 7). Geneva, the Group of 77 has established The Group of 77 has no formal insti- itself also officially at the → UNIDO in tutions, but has a chairman who acts as Vienna, the UN Headquarters in New a spokesman and coordinates the work. York, → FAO in Rome , → UNESCO Since 1974 this position has gained in in Paris, → IAEA in Vienna and → importance due to the rapidly increasing UNEP in Nairobi and also at almost amount of work. The office of the chair- every international conference of the man rotates every year between the UN since 1975 (→ World Conferences). three regions Africa, Asia and Latin The main accent of the work of the America and the Caribbean. The coor- Group of 77 lies still today in the dinator country is formally announced framework of UNCTAD. To prepare the after informal consultations based on UNCTAD conferences and to fine-tune the degree of identification with the their negotiating positions the member work of the group and on the ability to states meet shortly before the opening of serve this task for one year. It has be- the conferences. To point out only two come a custom that the formal determi- final landmark declarations, which gave nation of the coordinator is carried out important impulses to the policy of the by the meeting of the Foreign Ministers developing countries in relation to the of the Group of 77 at the beginning of industry states in the framework of the the regular sessions of the → General North-South Dialogue, out of the many Assembly of the UN. declarations developed at the Group of The group began its work in the early 77 meetings, which defined the objec- seventies in all important areas of the → tives and positions of the UN system as a kind of “trade union of countries (cf. Sauvant 1981): the poor”, and the main organ of the (1) The “Charter of Algiers” on the Third World for articulating and devel- economic rights of the Third World of oping their own common economical 25 October 1967, at the Conference of interests, as well as representing these Algiers for preparing UNCTAD II in interests in negotiations with the indus- New Delhi 1968: trialized countries. At first the Group of It was not only one of the first politi- 77 established a “Group of 24” in 1972 cal documents of the developing coun- which was to represent the interests of tries containing demands towards the the Group of 77 at the International industrialized states of the West and the Monetary Fund (→ IMF) and at the East as well as demands towards the de- (→ World Bank, World veloping countries themselves. More- Bank Group). Two years later the Group over it underlined the belief in them- of 77 formed a “Group of 30” on selves and in their own future. The con- 8 March 1974, with 10 countries repre- tent and spirit of the charter are marked senting each of the three regions. But to not least by the warning of the Algerian 208