“In 1958, the General Assembly of the United Nations established a Commission on Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, and instructed it to conduct a full survey of the status of permanent sovereignty over natural wealth and resources as a basic constituent of the right to self-determination. In 1962, after considering the final report, the General Assembly adopted a series of principles which declared, among other things:
That the right of peoples and nations to permanent sovereignty over their natural resources must be exercised in the direction of their natural development and of the well-being of the people of the State concerned;
That nationalisation, expropriation or requisitioning shall be based on grounds or reasons of public utility, security or the national interest which are recognised as overriding purely individual or private interests;
That violations of the rights of peoples and nations to sovereignty over their natural resources and wealth is contrary to the spirit and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and hinders the development of international co-operation and maintenance of peace.”
“These declarations and resolutions were not adopted by a communist party congress, but by an Assembly of representatives of nations from various countries, member states of the United Nations.”
“The predecessors of our own principles of democracy in South Africa were therefore not moving at a tangent to these universally recognis
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