Identify some of the major issues challenging the North-South countries. (2001)
North-South relations have run on a remarkably stable agenda since UNCTAD’s founding in 1964: trade terms, finance, technology and voice. Stephen D. Krasner, in Structural Conflict (1985), read the contest as one over regimes, the South preferring authoritative allocation by rules and institutions, the North allocation by markets. The issues below are where that conflict now bites.
Trade and market access
- Agricultural protection and tariff escalation. Northern farm support and duties that rise with processing tax the South’s move up the value chain. India’s defence of public stockholding for food security, shielded since Bali (2013) but still without a permanent solution, is the sharpest case.
- Special and differential treatment. The North now questions self-declared developing status, especially China’s; the South treats S&DT as the price paid for accepting TRIPS in 1994.
- Unilateralism. Sweeping US tariffs since 2025, and the EU’s carbon border levy from January 2026, bypass the WTO, whose Appellate Body has lacked a quorum since December 2019. The BRICS New Delhi Declaration (September 2026) criticised unilateral tariffs and sanctions.
- Digital trade. The North wants duty-free electronic transmissions made permanent; much of the South wants the tariff space. The moratorium lapsed at Yaoundé (MC14, March 2026).
Finance, debt and aid
- Debt. Low- and middle-income external debt reached $8.9 trillion in 2024; some 3.4 billion people live in countries spending more on interest than on health or education. The G20 Common Framework has drawn only four applicants.
- Aid. The 0.7% target set in 1970 has never been met collectively; aid fell to 0.26% of donor income in 2025, its steepest drop on record.
- Institutional voice. Weighted voting in the Bretton Woods institutions leaves the United States with a veto over IMF decisions needing 85%.
Technology and knowledge
- Intellectual property. TRIPS made product patents compulsory and raised the price of technology for net importers. The 2020 India–South Africa waiver proposal on COVID-19 products yielded only a narrow vaccine decision at MC12 (2022).
- The digital and AI divide. 2.2 billion people remain offline, and compute, data and model ownership are concentrated in a few Northern and Chinese firms.
Environment and climate
The North-South fault line at Rio in 1992 still runs through climate talks: historical responsibility and common but differentiated responsibilities against universal obligations. The finance goal agreed at Baku (COP29, 2024), $300 billion a year by 2035, falls far short of needs; Belém (COP30, 2025) only “called for efforts” to triple adaptation finance. The US exit from the Paris Agreement (effective January 2026) and its notice to leave the UNFCCC itself deepened Southern distrust.
Migration and security of supply
- Migration and remittances. Remittances, about $685 billion in 2024, exceed FDI and aid combined, yet migration controls tighten.
- Critical minerals. The North seeks secure supply; producers such as Indonesia seek processing onshore.
Perspectives
Liberals treat these as negotiable technical problems; dependency theorists treat them as symptoms of one hierarchical structure; Thomas Pogge argues the affluent sustain an institutional order that foreseeably produces avoidable poverty. India, under S. Jaishankar‘s framing in The India Way (2020), pursues them issue by issue, through coalitions such as the G-33 and the Voice of the Global South summits, rather than as a single bloc demand.
Conclusion
The issues have barely changed since the Brandt Report; what has changed is the balance of power. A more powerful but less united South and a North itself turning protectionist mean each issue is now settled separately, slowly and only where interests coincide.