Külpolitika - A Magyar Külügyi Intézet elméleti-politikai folyóirata - 1976 (3. évfolyam)
1976 / 1. szám - A tanulmányok orosz és angol nyelvű tartalmi kivonata
It is not easy to determine the place of the Final Act of the European Security Conference in the context of the norms of international relations. There are terminological doubts, ambiguities when determining the character of the document, and much that has appeared in the Western press is of a superficial nature. The document is not a contractual treaty in the legal sense, though there are features which suggest this, the intention of the signatories was not however to create commitments that had the force of international law. Some hastened to draw the conclusion that the Final Act in no sense had a legal character or the force of law. Kulcsár argues in detail that though the Final Act has political import in the first place, and though the obligations accepted are moral ones, it has a legal character as well, and numerous legal features. It could thus serve as the foundation of customary law or legal contracts, treaties or other kinds of agreements. Kulcsár goes on to interpret and explain in detail a number of legal principles which appear in international legal agreements and other sources and which affect Europe. The Final Act could thus serve to supplement such documents, including the UN Charter. The problem of moral and political sanctions and guarantees is discussed as well. These, Kulcsár argues, should be accorded their proper place even in the absence of conventional legal sanctions. Some Western papers have discerned things in the document which are not there, such as „the sanctification of carving up of Europe” „hegemony” etc. Kulcsár also points out that, in the past, the West let slide many opportunities and proposals aimed at international legal agreements. With the exception of a number of outstanding politicians, the West has always treated legal garantees of security and cooperation, or the possibility of related institutions, with suspicion and inflexibility. The road leading towards a European collective security agreement, and an organization that would institutionalize it, remains clear, and the gates are open. The Helsinki Final Act could well be a station along this road. Péter Kulcsár: The Helsinki Final Act and the norms of international relations Ferenc Kozma: On the possibility of refurbishing the world economic order The efforts of the developing countries to change their place in the world economy have, in recent years, taken on the character of a coherent strategy that has initiated snow-balling processes likely to have far-reaching effects in the economy and politics as a whole. It is certainly not a matter of indifference for the socialist countries in what direction the developing countries actually progress, and what sort of successes they achieve in reforming the world economic order. Imperialism has developed a strategy related to the „new world economic order”, which is aimed to extend the international division of labour of neo-colonialism to the whole world. Economic changes following the dissolution of the old colonial system made the maintenance of the monopoly in the processing industries on the part of the developed industrial countries meaningless. The aim was therefore to transfer a number of technologically simple industries to less developed territories where cheap labour is available. They continue to hang on to a monopoly of technological growth, and they wish to continue to control the production of the most important raw materials by exercising supervision over the ecohomic policy of developing countries, the distributive networks, and the monetary system. As against this imperialist strategy the developing countries try to exploit their monopoly of important raw materials, as well as their growing importance in international organizations. The strategical concept elaborated at the 6th and 7th General Assembly of the UN and presented to the world, contains numerous progressive and antiimperialist elements. The plan of reform does not, however, step out of the framework of the mechanism of a world dominated by monopoly capitalism, it tries to use it to redirect some of the income for the benefit of the developing world. It follows from the nature of the mechanism of the monopoly capitalist economy that the most far-reaching reforms which centres of capitalist power, the imperialist great powers in the first place, and the multinational enterprises, can put up with, basically operate in favour of the neo-colonialist international division of labour. Monopoly capital continues to hold every trump card: the monopoly of innovation and advanced skills, key positions in the commercial and financial networks, the chance to replace the raw materials that derive from the developing world, and the bulk of the world’s food reserves. What is more, monopoly capital additionally controls numerous economic, cultural and military bridgeheads in the bulk of the developing countries. These cannot themselves create a political or economic countervailing power that might neutralize the forces making for neo-colonialism. Such a countervailing power could only be made possible by strengthening the revolutionary and progressive features of the developing countries, by establishing regional groupings amongst them, and strengthening ties with the socialist community. The paper oudines the most important tasks in the industrialization, food economy, and educational and health infrastructure of the developing countries as a precondition of economic and intellectual independence from monopoly capitalism, as well as the basic principles of an international division of labour and world economic mechanism which would create conditions in the developing countries that favour the solution of such problems. These latter are: stable and planned international economic relations, increasing complexity of cooperation, the effects of cooperation on the internal economic integration of developing countries, the gradual doing away with differences in levels of economic VI
