Non-Discrimination

Abstract

Non-discrimination is fundamental to the liberal approach to international economic relations. Liberal economists have support for their views from summit meetings of heads of government. For example in the Downing Street Declaration which concluded the Summit Meeting held in London in May 1977, it was resoundingly stated: ‘Policies of protectionism foster unemployment, increase inflation and undermine the welfare of our peoples. We are therefore agreed on the need to maintain our political commitment to an open and nondiscriminatory world trading system.’ Yet, on this evidence, all the governments represented at the summit were engaged in fostering unemployment, increasing inflation, and undermining the welfare of their peoples, because each one of them was in greater or lesser degree, and none of them in small degree, protectionist. Each one of them was to a greater or lesser degree, and none of them to a small degree, conducting discriminatory trade policies of one kind or another.