India’s firm adherence to the principles of multilateralism took root in the early 20th century as one of the founding members of the League of Nations in 1920. At the end of the Second World War, the major Allied powers agreed to coordinate their efforts by endorsing the Declaration of the United Nations in 1942, and India was among the 26 signatories. Again, in October 1945, when the Charter of the United Nations was formally adopted, India was one of the 51 signatory countries. Sir Ramaswami A. Mudaliar, who had signed the UN Charter as India’s representative, was appointed the Chair of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the UN in 1946. In its first session, the ECOSOC adopted a resolution, “The Calling of an International Conference on Trade and Employment”, for the “purpose of promoting the expansion of production, exchange and consumption of goods”[1].
ECOSOC’s first initiative was setting up a Preparatory Committee whose major task was the “establishment of an international trade organisation, as a specialised agency of the United Nations”. In October 1947, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was adopted as the first multilateral agreement for laying down global trade rules. India was not only an active participant in the negotiations in the run-up to the adoption of the GATT, but it was also one of the original signatories to the treaty.
India’s commitment to multilateralism was firmly anchored to the principles of equity and social justice. More specifically, leaders of the country sought to promote social progress and better standards of life in greater freedom even when the post-colonial world was starting to emerge. Its first expression in this regard was the convening of the Asian Relations Conference a few months before the country attained political independence in 1947. Interestingly, the Asian Relations Conference was one of the first major conferences in which the emergent nations discussed the “status of women and women’s movements in Asia”[2].
The Asian Relations Conference sowed the seeds for a much larger platform for the developing countries, the Afro-Asian Conference at Bandung in of 1955[3]. The Bandung Conference, of which India was one of the five sponsors, is best remembered even after seventy years for the 10 Principles representing the “Bandung Spirit”, which emphasised that “all nations should have the right freely to choose their own political and economic systems and their own way of life, in conformity with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations”.
The emergence of the Afro-Asian group at the Bandung Conference triggered two significant developments, both of which had deep Indian imprints. The first was the establishment of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in 1961, which, as the voice of the South, articulated the aspirations of the less developed countries. Secondly, the first meeting of the NAM proposed a Conference on the problems of economic development, which was held in 1962, and its 36 participants included Latin American countries as well. This conference recommended an early convening of an international conference on trade and development under the UN to consider “all vital questions relating to international trade, primary commodity trade and economic relations between developing and developed countries”[4]. The UN General Assembly endorsed the recommendation[5] and the first United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) was convened in 1964. The UNCTAD became not only the first UN agency to consider issues pertaining to developing countries, but it also resulted in the formation of the politically significant Group of 77 (G77), the bulwark for developing countries for a more equitable economic order during the next two decades.
The G77’s most ambitious agenda was expressed in its UN General Assembly Resolution for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) that was adopted in 1974. For India and other developing countries, this was a moment for giving effect to their aspirations, which they did through the “Arusha Programme for Collective Self-Reliance and Framework for Negotiations”, adopted in 1979[6]. However, the economic crisis following the second oil price shock and the subsequent developing country debt crisis in the 1980s upended their agenda and shifted the focus from the UNCTAD to the GATT. Developing countries had little influence in the latter as the GATT rules of global trade allowed them to opt out of the trade liberalisation agenda, the principal focus of this treaty. Not surprisingly, these countries had little influence in determining the outcome of the GATT negotiations in the 1980s, conducted under the Uruguay Round, resulting in the formation of the WTO.
India and other emerging economies like Brazil and South Africa played a significant role during the implementation of the covered agreements under the WTO. The difficulties that developing countries faced in implementing these agreements, especially due to their unbalanced was effectively articulated[7]. The Doha Development Agenda adopted at the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the WTO in 2001[8] was a reflection of the issues that developing countries had raised. Though the Doha Round was de facto discontinued after 2017, the issues raised by the developing countries relating to global governance issues in several key areas continue to reverberate in other forums in which they have articulated their aspirations.
The 10-member BRICS grouping has been most vocal about the role that emerging economies must play in global economic governance. Besides seeking to enhance their influence in managing international financial institutions, the BRICS have taken a series of measures towards reducing their dependence on the dollar-dominated global payments system[9]. The efforts that India and the other BRICS members have been making to promote their national currencies for international trade and other financial transactions could significantly alter the global economic dynamics.
References:
[1] UN. 1946. The Calling of an International Conference on Trade and Employment, ESC Res. 13(I), UN ESCOR, 1st Sess., UN. Doc. E/22.
[2] McCallum, JA. 1947. The Asian Relations Conference. The Australian Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 2. June.
[3] Final Communiqué of the Asian-African Conference. 1955, accessed from: https://www.cvce.eu/en/obj/final_communique_of_the_asian_african_conference_of_bandung_ 24_april_1955-en-676237bd-72f7-471f-949a-88b6ae513585.html.
[4] United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. 1985. The History of UNCTAD 1964–84. New York: UN, p. 10
[5] UN. 1962. United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, GA Resolution 1785 (XVII). 8 December.
[6] Sauvant, Karl P. 2014. The Early Days of the Group of 77. UN Chronicle. No. 1 Vol. LI. May, accessed from https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/early-days-group-77.
[7] Dhar, Biswajit. 2013. The future of the World Trade Organization, in Richard Baldwin, Masahiro Kawai and Ganeshan Wignaraja (eds). The Future of the World Trading System: Asian Perspectives. Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR). London.
[8] WTO. 2001. Ministerial Declaration: Adopted on 14 November 2001. WT/MIN(01)/DEC/1. 20 November.
[9] Dhar, Biswajit. 2025. How BRICS is Challenging SWIFT. The Hindu. 5 November.
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