ABSTRACT
Over the last three decades, the international trade debate has been strongly influenced by the efforts of developing countries to reform the trading system so as to make it more responsive to their needs and aspirations. Those efforts reflected their perception that they had inherited a system in the design of which they had played little or no part, and which was intrinsically biased against their interests. The major policy thrust, embodied in the establishment of UNCTAD and the Group of 77, was the realisation of the need for and the possibility of achieving reform of the system through coordinated negotiating initiatives and solidarity.
