Towards a Less Imperfect State of the World: The Gulf Between North and South

Many developing countries assert a claim to the privilege of managing world order on a shared basis but exhibit a strong reluctance to accept the responsibility flowing from such privilege, for example with respect to protecting the victims of humanitarian atrocities. Some powerful countries insist on claiming the benefits flowing from collective decision-making, in terms of greater legitimacy and authority, but resist the constraints on policy options that would result from a genuinely shared process of international policy-making. Curiously, the two feed on each other. Progress requires the creation and maintenance of a rules-based world order that specifies both the proper conduct to be fol-lowed by all states and the mechanisms for reconciling differences between them. [FES briefing paper-4]