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11 Cal. W. Int'l L.J. 445 (1981)
U.N. General Assembly Resolutions and International Law: Rethinking the Contemporary Dynamics of Norm-Creation

handle is hein.journals/calwi11 and id is 455 raw text is: U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLUTIONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW: RETHINKING THE CONTEMPORARY DYNAMICS OF NORM-CREATION CHRISTOPHER C. JOYNER* That the international community is presently passing through a revolutionary time when many of its traditional norms and values are being seriously questioned can hardly be denied. Indeed, given the rather profound political, economic, and technological transfor- mations in the international system over the last three decades, one scarcely could think otherwise. International law is to an extraordinary extent the normative product of Eurocentric civilization. For most of its existence the law of nations has been a white man's law which evolved in great measure during the 18th and 19th centuries-an era concomitantly earmarked by extensive European expansionism, colonialism, and imperialism. Even so, this epoch began to collapse with World War I, and it ended irretrievably in the aftermath of World War II as various colonial empires disintegrated. This collapse precipi- tated a world wide rush toward nationalistic self-determination and independence. As patent testimony to this traumatic transition, one only needs to recall that the United Nations was created in 1945 with 51 original members; today in 1981 that organization counts 154 states as members, the majority of which gained independence through the aforementioned dissolution process of de-colonization. Undoubtedly, these new states (which predominantly are in Asia, Africa and Latin America and collectively have been labeled by the misnomer, Group of 77') possess ancient histories and dis- * Assistant Professor of International Law, Department of Political Science, George Washington University; B.A., 1970, M.A. 1972, 1973, Florida State University; Ph.D. 1977, University of Virginia. During 1980-81, the author was visiting Assistant Professor of Inter- national Law at the University of Virginia. Accordingly, appreciation is given to the Depart- ment of Government and Foreign Affairs for its financial support in the completion of this study. 1. The Group of 77 coalition was formed in 1964 at the first sessional meeting of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva. Today, there are ap- proximately 120 countries comprising this bloc, which has also been labeled variously as The South, the Third World Countries, the less-developed countries, the poor coun-

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