ABSTRACT
Over the past thirty years developing countries have moved from being largely passive spectators in a world whose rules were made entirely by the big powers to being active participants – although, many people would say, still in a world whose rules are made by the big powers. Developing countries’ problems – in which trade problems play a major role – have over the years become the main focus of attention in United Nations agencies and in GATT, and new concern with commodity trade in the seventies has created new agencies and conferences in which relations between developed and developing countries are being argued out. At the same time, the rules of the world trade ‘game’ are being perpetually modified and re-written. Major elements in this process of modification are, firstly, the apparent movement in trade patterns (or at least trade treaty links) from ‘global’ patterns back to regional ties; and, secondly (and probably more significantly) the ever-growing role of governments both in determining the rules of the game and in becoming prime movers and participants in actual trading.
