Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations
the Millennium Development Goals as part of an even larger development agenda. While the Goals have been the subject of an enormous amount of follow-up inside and outside the United Nations, they clearly do not in themselves represent a complete development agenda" (para. 30). There are important elements of this larger and more complete development agenda in the "2005 World Summit Outcome", the comprehensive document adopted by the General Assembly at the conclusion of its well-attended Summit of 14-16 September 2005. Negotiated for months under the leadership of the president of the General Assembly, this document has the distinct merit-apart from its advances in the domains of peace and collective security, human rights and the rule of law--of placing the reduction of poverty and other specific goals back within the context of development and international cooperation for the overall betterment of the human condition. The words "justice," "social justice" and "social deveiopment" are virtually absent (social development is mentioned once as one of the three dimensions of international development), and the World Summit for Social Development and its ten commitments are also ignored, but a number of the dimensions of international justice and social justice -as understood in this inquiry-are indeed highlighted in the "2005 World Summit Outcome"; among the issues addressed within this context are the participation of developing countries in the management of the global economy, employment (the goal of full and productive employment and decent work for all is explicitly endorsed), and migration and development. With regard to the growing de facto interdependence of countries at different levels of development, the document notes that since "the scope for domestic policies ... is now often framed by international disciplines, commitments and global market considerations ... it is for each Government to evaluate the trade-off between the benefits of accepting international rules and commitments and the constraints posed by the loss of policy space" (para. 22 (d)).This recognition that national Governments have the right to "policy space" and therefore the right to elaborate their own policies to respond to the forces of globalization is one of the conditions for reconciling justice and freedom at the national and international levels. Another condition, the building of international and global organizations that would offer a political counterweight to the current power of these globalizing forces, remains in the realm of utopia. Although with considerably more discretion, and as proposed by its Third Committee, the General Assembly at its sixtieth session adopted resolution A/60/500 of 15 November 2005 on the implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development and of the twenty-fourth special session of the General Assembly. This resolution goes beyond a pro forma reaffirmation of the validity of the commitments made ten years before at the World Summit for Social Develop-