This article explores how the Third World articulated a novel political vocabulary of freedom and domination during the post-war era, culminating in the demands for a New International Economic Order (NIEO) and the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States (CERDS). Drawing on Latin American structuralism and a conception of freedom as non-dependency, peripheral countries reframed sovereignty not merely as non-interference but as emancipation from structural economic domination. Through the analysis of key political events-such as the Algiers Charter, the Third Session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD III), and the Sixth Special Session of the UN General Assembly-this study shows that the Third World developed a distinctive understanding of international inequality, linking development to autonomy and sovereign control over economic structures. The article challenges dominant interpretations that reduce Third World demands to just material self-interest or mere extensions of Western liberal ideals. Instead, it argues that these initiatives constituted an original, systemic critique of the global economic order, with lasting relevance for contemporary debates on development and freedom.