The Population Growth Discourse in the First Decades of the United Nations: Interpretations of Global Economic Inequality and the Struggles for a Just International Legal Order

Abstract

Population growth was a pivotal issue in the United Nations during its first decades. The global population was growing steeply, and most of this growth took place in the formerly colonized states. Population trends were framed as an aspect of development and became object of extensive international activities, outside the UN and within. The paper explores the population discourse of those years with a focus on the UN and on the relationship with international law. It traces, firstly, the UN documents engaging directly with population growth and aiming to influence national population policies. Secondly, the paper suggests that the framing of population growth as problem of development stressed its causal role for poverty and food insecurity. The struggles for a New International Economic Order coincided with the international focus on population growth, partly with competing interpretations of reasons for global economic inequality. Thirdly, the paper suggests that the activities within the UN played a central role in shaping the discourse. While the activities of governments and private organizations were significant, it was through the authority of the UN that the development-population-nexus achieved such dominance.

Keywords: population growth, birth rates, development, decolonization, New International Economic Order