The paper proceeds from the assumption that globalization has placed significant constraints on the autonomy of nation states in the making of social policy. It argues that the post‐World War II welfare state represented a social system highly successful in combining economic efficiency and dynamism with equity and solidarity. This historic achievement at the nation‐state level is being undermined by economic globalization. It is both necessary and feasible to recreate and institutionalize this mixed system globally. The paper argues that the concept of social rights, which has served as the basic underpinning of the welfare state, has many weaknesses—logical as well as empirical. While the principles of civil and political rights are being consolidated and extended worldwide the principle of social rights is in decay. The paper presents the case for replacing social rights by social standards as the major concept for buttressing systems of social protection. To be applicable globally a social standard must be conceptualized as a level of social development which corresponds to an appropriate level of economic development. Finally, the paper considers the problems and prospects of developing social standards transnationally. It reviews, briefly, the nature and extent of transnational social policy‐making by inter‐governmental organizations and concludes that despite difficulties of global action advances towards global social standards remain possible.