From the introduction: The seventh G20 was hosted by Mexico in Los Cabos on the 18 th and 19 th June of 2012. After the USA, the UK, France and South Korea, all rated as “developed”, “high-income” countries, it was for the first time a developing country's turn to direct the Leader's Summit. However, the out-coming response put forward as an answer to the global world issues remain unchanged and univocal: growth, growth, growth. As an anecdotal but yet eloquent fact, we noted 55 occurrences of the word crecimiento (growth) in the final Spanish declaration, and Public international law (IL) is no exception in this trend. What has been called since the 60's «development law», specifically applicable to «underdeveloped countries» is an illustration of this evolution towards a global capitalist order seeking to produce and consume always more. Its ideology rests on Rostow's take- off theory from the early sixties according to which every country should follow the great path of evolution of first world countries and “grow” toward a society of mass-consumption and productivism, what we would call a “growth society” or “society of growth”.

Contribution to the 3rd International Degrowth Conference for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity in Venice in 2012.