This review article discusses the unprecedented commitments adopted by the international community that have paved the way for the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals, as well as the leading role that the European Union has played in regard to development aid. Its ambition consists in exploring why the implementation of such goals on a global scale has not yet aligned with the rhetoric of these commitments and with the transformative opportunities they offer. This paper first analyses the mixed results of the Millennium Development Goals, as well as the Sustainable Development Goals, which reflect a paradigm shift emanating from all world leaders to address current global challenges. It then expounds how the European Union, guided by its universal values and principles it aspires to promote in the rest of the world, and considering trade as a powerful lever for development, has helped developing countries to integrate into the global trading system. The latter also embodies a political model by integrating environmental concerns and sustainable development into its own treaties and plays a predominant role in the elaboration and implementation of these global goals. Finally, this article attempts to explain why the globalisation of the economy engenders deep inequalities, destroys the environment, and thus hinders the implementation of such goals by subordinating the social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development.