Non-Aligned Movement

Founding process

The movement originated in the aftermath of the Korean War as an effort by some countries to counterbalance the rapid bi-polarization of the world, drawing on the principles agreed at the Bandung Conference of 1955. On 30 September 1960 Tito, Nasser, Sukarno, Nehru and Nkrumah drafted "The Initiative of the Fives" to the President of the General Assembly, and the Declaration of Brijuni, signed on 19 July 1956 by Tito, Nehru and Nasser, declared that "Peace cannot be achieved with separation, but with the aspiration towards collective security in global terms and expansion of freedom, as well as terminating the domination of one country over another". The meeting of the three leaders at Brijuni was called the "Third World's Yalta". The Belgrade conference of 1-6 September 1961 had 25 participating countries and 3 observers (Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador), following a preparatory meeting held earlier in 1961 in Cairo. The term "non-aligned movement" itself appears first at the fifth conference in 1976.

Belgrade: achievements and limits

At Belgrade the participants were united by a Third World response to the Cold War blocs and nuclear threats, on the basis of non-membership in any military or ideological bloc dominated by one of the Great Powers, equality between nations, self-determination and avoidance of force, and the leaders agreed to write to Kennedy and Khrushchev urging de-escalation. At the same time the conference was weakened by the Soviets resuming nuclear testing on its first day and by the refusal to denounce Soviet and Chinese actions in Tibet and Eastern Europe.

Organizational development and splits

At Lusaka in 1970 the member nations added as aims the peaceful resolution of disputes, abstention from big-power military alliances and pacts, and opposition to the stationing of military bases in foreign countries. The 1996 Cartagena Document on Methodology defined organizational basics, and the Summit Conference of Heads of State or Government is the highest decision-making authority with rotating chairmanship. The 1979 Havana conference under Fidel Castro marked the zenith of Cuban prestige, but the December 1979 Soviet intervention in Afghanistan split the movement: at the UN non-aligned members voted 56 to 9 with 26 abstaining to condemn the Soviet Union, while Cuba voted against the resolution and lost its nonaligned leadership and reputation. In 1975 NAM member nations in the UN General Assembly pushed Resolution 3379 with Arab countries and Soviet bloc support, equating Zionism with South African apartheid and racial discrimination, a declarative non-binding measure.

Internal division and autonomy

Yugoslavia's rejection of moving the 1979 summit from Havana "decisively calmed down those voices" opposing Cuba's chairmanship, and together with India it successfully pushed amendments against what they saw as an unacceptably one-sided pro-Soviet draft of the final declaration of the Havana Conference. Cuba, Iran and Iraq were absent from the 1989 Belgrade Conference, which adopted a more equidistant final document. This supports depicting the movement as autonomous and internally contested rather than a bloc appendage. On the other hand, some member nations were involved in serious conflicts with other members, notably India and Pakistan as well as Iran and Iraq, and the NAM was widely regarded as unsuccessful in securing a real change of power given the veto power.

After the Cold War

The breakup of Yugoslavia (1991-1992) led to the suspension of its membership at the 1992 New York ministerial meeting; Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro and Serbia retain observer status. Bosnia and Herzegovina's and Costa Rica's membership applications were rejected in 1995 and 1998; Malta and Cyprus ceased to be members on joining the EU in 2004; Azerbaijan and Fiji joined in 2011.

Distinctions and current situation

The NAM is distinct from the Group of 77, the UN-based coalition of developing countries. The Group of 77 was founded on 15 June 1964 by 77 non-aligned nations in the "Joint Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at UNCTAD; it has 134 members today, and China supports it but does not consider itself a member, so statements are issued as "G77 and China". The NAM itself has been described as the framework from which the Group of 77 emerged as part of UNCTAD. The Neutral and Non-Aligned European States (NN) grouping was an informal Cold War group of European states that were neither in NATO nor the Warsaw Pact, namely neutral Austria, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland plus non-aligned Yugoslavia, Cyprus and Malta, which cooperated within the CSCE to preserve the results of the Helsinki Accords and advocated peace, disarmament and superpower restraint; Yugoslavia hosted a second CSCE summit in Belgrade in 1977.

Today the NAM has 120 member states, 18 observer states and 10 international organisations, representing nearly two-thirds of UN members and containing 55% of the world population. Chairmanship rotates at each summit, from the 16th in Tehran (2012) and the 17th in Venezuela (2016) to the 18th in Baku (2019) and the 19th in Kampala, Uganda (January 2024). The movement advocates reform of the UN Security Council, stating the Council is the element it considers most distorted, undemocratic and in need of reshaping. It has supported self-determination discussions for Puerto Rico (since 1961) and Western Sahara (since 1973), and it has criticised aspects of US foreign policy, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In the 1970s and early 1980s it campaigned for the New International Economic Order (NIEO) and the New World Information and Communication Order (NWICO); the Non-Aligned News Agencies Pool, created in 1975, was converted into the NAM News Network in 2005, and the NAM Centre for South-South Technical Cooperation was established after the 1995 Cartagena meeting, based in Jakarta and financed by Indonesia's voluntary contributions.