It is essential to reflect upon the impact of globalization on the economic, social and cultural rights recognized in the Universal Declaration and further developed in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Although it is capable of multiple and diverse definitions, globalization is a phenomenon which has wrought fundamental changes within every society. It is usually defined primarily by reference to the developments in technology, communications, information processing and so on that have made the world smaller and more interdependent in very many ways. But it has also come to be closely associated with a variety of specific trends and policies, including an increasing reliance upon the free market, a significant growth in the influence of international financial markets and institutions in determining the viability of national policy priorities, a diminution in the role of the State and the size of its budget, the privatization of various functions previously considered to be the exclusive domain of the State, the deregulation of a range of activities with a view to facilitating investment and rewarding individual initiative, and a corresponding increase in the role and even responsibilities attributed to private actors, both in the corporate sector, in particular to the transnational corporations, and in civil society.