ABSTRACT
The seventh G20 was hosted by Mexico in Los Cabos on 18–19 June 2012. After the USA, the UK, France and South Korea all rated as ‘developed’, ‘high-income’ countries, it was for the first time a developing country’s turn to direct the Leader’s Summit. However, the resulting response put forward as an answer to the global world issues remained unchanged and univocal: growth, growth, growth. 1 The mainstream discourse of international politics is fostering merchandising, markets, finance, competition, which could all be regarded as basically capitalistic values, hoping that the magic trickle-down effect is going to raise standards of living everywhere and for everybody. Public international law is no exception to this trend. What has been called ‘development law’ since the 1960s, specifically applicable to ‘underdeveloped countries’, is an illustration of this evolution towards a global capitalist order always seeking to produce and consume more. Its ideology rests on Rostow’s take-off theory, according to which every country should follow the great path of evolution of ‘first world’ countries and ‘grow’ towards a society of mass consumption and productivism – what we would call a ‘growth society’ or ‘society of growth’ (Rostow, 1960).
