A/HRC/30/44 production, in particular with the lead firms in international production networks, which are also altering the space available to policymakers. The growing interdependence among States and markets provides the main rationale for a well-structured system of global economic governance with multilateral rules and disciplines. I n principle, such a system should ensure the provision of global public goods such as international economic and financial stability and a more open trading system. I n addition, it should be represented by coherent multilateral institutional arrangements created by intergovernmental agreements to voluntarily reduce sovereignty on a reciprocal basis. The guiding principle of such arrangements should be their ability to generate fair and inclusive outcomes. This principle should inform the design, implementation and enforcement of multilateral rules, disciplines and support mechanisms. These would contribute significantly to minimizing adverse international spillovers and other negative externalities created by national economic policies that focus on maximizing national benefits. From this perspective, how these arrangements manage the interface between different national systems (from which they ultimately draw their legitimacy), rather than erasing national differences and establishing a singular and omnipotent economic and legal structure, best describes the objectives of multilateralism. The extent to which national development strategies respond to national needs and priorities can be limited or circumscribed by multilateral regimes and international rules, but equally, they can be influenced by economic and political pressures emanating from the workings of global markets, depending on the degree of integration of the country concerned. While the extent and depth of engagement with the global economy may result from domestic economic policy choices, subsequent policies are likely to be affected by that engagement, sometimes in a way and to an extent not anticipated. As noted in TDR 2006, it is not only international treaties and rules, but also global market conditions and policy decisions in other countries that have an impact on policy space. Global imbalances of power (both economic and political) also remain undeniably significant in affecting the capacities of governments of different countries to engage in the design and implementation of autonomous policies. There are valid concerns that the various legal obligations emerging from multilateral, regional and bilateral agreements have reduced national policy autonomy by restricting both the available range and the efficacy of particular policy instruments. At the same time, multilateral disciplines can operate to reduce the inherent bias of international economic relations in favour of countries that have greater economic or political power (Akyüz, 2007). Those disciplines can simultaneously restrict (particularly de jure) and ease (particularly de facto) policy space. In addition, the effectiveness of national policies tends to be weakened, in some instances very significantly, by the global spread of market forces (especially financial markets) as well as by the internalization of markets within the operations of large international firms. It is important to consider whether, how and to what extent policy space is reduced and reconfigured. Limits on policy space resulting from obligations or pressures to deregulate markets tend to circumscribe the ability of governments to alter patterns of market functioning to meet their broader social and developmental objectives. Yet unfettered market processes are unlikely to deliver macroeconomic and financial stability, full employment, economic diversification towards higher value added activities, poverty reduction and other socially desirable outcomes. But while national policies are obviously affected by the extent of policy space available, as determined by the external context, they are also − and still fundamentally − the result of domestic forces. These include, among others, politics and the political economy that determine the power and voice of different groups in society, domestic expertise and capacities, the nature of institutions and enforcement agencies, the structure 41