To emulate the success of East Asian economies poses a challenge for developing countries when, at present, rules of multilateral regulating bodies, such as the World Trade Organization, make protection more difficult. Despite their differential treatment, as defined under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, developing countries, aside from the poorest ones, have in practice had to apply the same rules as the developed countries. It will therefore be necessary for developing countries to make better use of the policy space that remains and for international organizations to consider expanding the policy space so as to allow more developing countries to prepare themselves to succeed in the global marketplace. In the period between the Second World War and the late 1970s, social policy was seen as a fundamental part of overall development strategy.