f Justice (ICJ) or World Court

Economy World

Economy - overview:
Global output rose by 3.7% in 2003, led by China (9.1%), India
(7.6%), and Russia (7.3%). The other 14 successor nations of the
USSR and the other old Warsaw Pact nations again experienced widely
divergent growth rates; the three Baltic nations continued as strong
performers, in the 5%-7% range of growth. Growth results posted by
the major industrial countries varied from a loss by Germany (-0.1%)
to a strong gain by the United States (3.1%). The developing nations
also varied in their growth results, with many countries facing
population increases that erode gains in output. Externally, the
nation-state, as a bedrock economic-political institution, is
steadily losing control over international flows of people, goods,
funds, and technology. Internally, the central government often
finds its control over resources slipping as separatist regional
movements - typically based on ethnicity - gain momentum, e.g., in
many of the successor states of the former Soviet Union, in the
former Yugoslavia, in India, in Iraq, in Indonesia, and in Canada.
Externally, the central government is losing decision-making powers
to international bodies. In Western Europe, governments face the
difficult political problem of channeling resources away from
welfare programs in order to increase investment and strengthen
incentives to seek employment. The addition of 80 million people
each year to an already overcrowded globe is exacerbating the
problems of pollution, desertification, underemployment, epidemics,
and famine. Because of their own internal problems and priorities,
the industrialized countries devote insufficient resources to deal
effectively with the poorer areas of the world, which, at least from
the economic point of view, are becoming further marginalized. The
introduction of the euro as the common currency of much of Western
Europe in January 1999, while paving the way for an integrated
economic powerhouse, poses economic risks because of varying levels
of income and cultural and political differences among the
participating nations. The terrorist attacks on the US on 11
September 2001 accentuate a further growing risk to global
prosperity, illustrated, for example, by the reallocation of
resources away from investment to anti-terrorist programs. The
opening of war in March 2003 between a