Heritage’s UN project attacked the NIEO’s regulation of transnational corporations.

Evidence

Among the several books that Heritage published as part of the United Nations Assessment Project is the provocatively titled volume A World without a U.N., featuring a foreword by former U.S. deputy ambassador to the United Nations Charles Lichtenstein. In a chapter discussing the UN and economic development, the authors warn that while “there is little new about NIEO emphases on grant aid, reduction of trade barriers, preferential market access for exports of developing countries, planning, and alleged deterioration of the terms of trade for raw materials exports … there is a new, disquieting strain in the NIEO proposals. Article 2 of the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, for instance, is directed toward the regulation of transnational corporations and foreign investment and the authorization of nationalization and expropriation, with compensation to be determined by the courts of the nationalizing country” (Erickson and Sumner 1984, 3–4). — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1812

Categorization

• DEFINE: Identifies the NIEO (New International Economic Order) and its Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States as the target of Heritage criticism.
• XREF: Relevant to the broader NIEO debate and the Global South’s push for economic sovereignty in the 1970s-80s, which this reader likely encounters in other development-history readings. — connects to: Neoliberals rebranded market restrictions as human rights abuses to contest the NIEO. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 429; The NIEO threat spurred the neoliberal counterrevolution in development policy — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making…, 1733

Broader Connections

• The NIEO threat spurred the neoliberal counterrevolution in development policy #expands (0.85) — Philip Mirowski & Dieter Plehwe (eds.), The Road from Mont Pèlerin, 1733