Social Justice in an Open World: The Role of the United Nations
What sort of "development" is this global partnership supposed to bring to developing countries and to the world? Is it sustainable development? If so, why is the crucial point made in the Declaration with regard the value "respect for natureu-that "the current unsustainable patterns of production and consumption must be changed in the interest of our future welfare and that of our descendants" (para. 6)-not reflected in Goal 8, or in Goal 7, which relates to environmental sustainability? Is it a development respectful of cultural diversity, pluralism, and national responsibilities and choices? Such notions are totally absent from the Millennium Development Goals. It seems, then, that it is the traditional model, in which development is identified with growth and the latter with an increase in gross national product, that is proposed for developing countries. Developed countries, unconcerned with the Goals, presumably represent this model. Does this mean that developed countries are facing no problems in their efforts to achieve economic and social progress? Are the voices claiming that today's dominant civilization is physically, politically, morally and spiritually unsustainable to be totally ignored? In any event, Goal 8, with all its limitations, is largely ignored. When it comes to the Millennium texts, all attention is focused on poverty reduction. It is as if the eighth Goal and the issue of development has been included in the Millennium Development Goals pour memoire-as if poverty must first be reduced, then development will be achieved. Meanwhile, the formal and informal rules governing trade, finance and other aspects of the world economy are still heavily biased in favour of the affluent and powerful countries. Greater participation by developing countries in the management of world affairs in general and of the world economy in particular-an objective conspicuously absent from the Millennium Development Goals-is not being achieved. Those offering such criticisms maintain that the pursuit of international justice, understood as the quest for equality for all members of the international community, is disappearing from the international scene, and the United Nations is failing to halt this trend. In fact, the very notion of an international community is endangered, not only as a working reality but as a project and an ideal.