In the Footsteps of the OPEC: Trends in Collective Bargaining over Natural Resources

The new World Economic Order, advocated at the end of the Sixth Special Session of the UN General Assembly through a Declaration in Action Programme, and later by the regular session of the Assembly in the form of the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties, poses quite a few problems. Its legal validity, its political wisdom, its economic content and a host of other issues have been questioned. The two instruments contain provocative provisions, like the right to nationalise foreign property. But tactically every strategy suggested therein has been the subject of serious debate in some forum or other of the United Nations and in academic circles. The least discussed, at least amongst international lawyers, is the concept of commodity cartels.