Negotiations on an international commodity policy have been the central issue on the North-South agenda for the past three years. They also can be seen as the first major effort to give substantive meaning to the Third World's desire not only for a new regime for the world's raw commodity trade but also for a New International Economic Order. Yet various obstacles have impeded successful North-South bargaining, and the negotiations remain at a stalemate. Focusing on the bargaining process between developed and developing countries in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Robert Rothstein analyzes the factors that have inhibited successful negotiation and suggests ways in which these obstacles might be removed.

The first part of the book focuses on the specifics of the commodity debate, while in the second part the author attempts to explain the causes of delay, misunderstanding, and mistrust within the negotiating process. Assessing the possibility of devising an effective bargaining policy among unequal parties with conflicting values and interests, Professor Rothstein suggests a number of structural, institutional, and conceptual reforms.

Originally published in 1979.

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