Introduction

The common aspiration of the entire international community as it emerged from the ravages of the Second World War was an economic order which would, ensure global growth within a framework of International co-operation. The normative framework of the post-war economic order aimed at promoting global full-employment was founded on several fundamental principles. The first was the principle of liberalization so that tariffs, quota restrictions, exchange controls, multiple exchange rates and other interferences with the free market, which were widely practised, would be eliminated progressively. Trade in agriculture was hardly affected, as was trade in areas as processed products and simply manufactures. The trading system established within the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade was intended to eliminate the kind of government import controls, exchange regulations, export subsidies, managed exchange rates and national interventions which constricted and contorted world trade during the inter-war years.