advantage, both vis-a-vis each other and with respect to other countries, as they are by collaboration among the industrial democracies to achieve some common purpose. There is no perceived threat or unifying problem which now overrides the historical tendency towards rivalry and fragmentation among major nation-states. (b) A central issue in global politics has become bargaining about the prudent use of resources, the production and distribution of wealth, and the management of global technologies, with a central issue being a more equitable distribution of the wealth and social benefits resulting from technological capabilities. The legitimacy of the existing rules of international law and norms of international behavior is being questioned; to the nonindustrial world, these laws and norms appear to reflect the former political superiority of Western countries and to “rig” the international system in order to confer advantages on those countries. (c) There is increasing use of multilateral, as opposed to bilateral, diplomacy as a means for negotiating on pressing issues and there is a parallel development of new and adaptive functions for multilateral institutions as global bargains on specific issues are reached. (d) Issues and considerations which have always been dealt with in international frameworks are being combined with those issues which have been traditionally treated as the internal affairs of a particular country; this means that much of the substance of multilateral diplomacy is in fact related to the decisions and actions internal to a particular country. As countries develop new technological capabilities, many decisions with respect to deployment of those capabilities cannot escape being discussed in a multilateral context, and national freedom of action is being increasingly constrained by some concept of international “accountability,” especially when that deployment involves the use of the “international commons.” (e) Equally, issues which have always been the province of government are being melded with those which traditionally have been left to private interests for decision. Increasingly, and particularly with the rising influence of large, transnational enterprises, the line between “public” and “private” is very blurred, and there is a rising trend for international public regulation of what normally are private transnational activities. (f) There is a tendency towards increasing the number of participants in multilateral bargaining, with all of those able to claim a legitimate stake in the outcome of a particular bargain being allowed to have some voice in setting at least the general principles which will determine that outcome. More and more, international decisions on issues of resource management and wealth distribution, among others, are being made by the messy, noisy, not always rational process of open debate among those with often widely divergent interests and ideologies. (g) Even granted all the above, the technological and financial resources required to undertake an enterprise of the scope of SPS are likely to be held by a relatively few powerful nations, and it is their interests and influence which will dominate any process underpinning SPS development. In one sense, then, the global context for SPS development will not be that different from that surrounding the creation of INTELSAT. Whatever the complicating factors, SPS cannot come into being unless a very few powerful countries are willing to let it exist. It is their core interests, as defined at the time, that will be the key determinants of any institutional framework for SPS; it is to be hoped, and worked for, that those interests include making SPS an asset for all peoples of the world, not just those countries fortunate enough to be able to consider investing in SPS development.
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