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Date: Thu, 14 May 1998
From: el viento <•••@••.•••>
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF UN
Subject: CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONTINUES
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998
From: Corporate Europe Observatory <•••@••.•••>
CORPORATE EUROPE OBSERVER ISSUE 1, APRIL 1998
_________________________________________________________________
CORPORATE TAKEOVER OF THE UNITED NATIONS CONTINUES
_________________________________________________________________
In the last issue of Corporate Europe Observer, we reported on a
June 1997 luncheon in UN headquarters with corporate executives
and global political leaders, including UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan. Discussion topics included business participation in the
UN decision-making process and a UN-business partnership in
development policies. That this event was not an isolated case
becomes clear in the following two articles: one describing the
increasingly successful attempts of the International Chamber of
Commerce (ICC) to gain privileged access to the UN; and the other
detailing a particularly inappropriate case of corporate
sponsorship -- Nestli's recent hosting and sponsoring of a UN
workshop on women and sustainable development.
_________________________________________________________________
UNITED NATIONS UNDER SIEGE
_________________________________________________________________
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) -- the self-
proclaimed "world business organization" -- wants privileged
access to the United Nations and other international
organizations. During last year's presidency of Nestli's Helmut
Maucher, the ICC's ambitions seemed to materialize and take
flight.
UN-Business Partnership
The International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), contrary to what its
name might suggest, is primarily an organization representing the
largest transnational corporations on earth, including corporate
giants like General Motors, Novartis, Bayer and Nestli. The ICC,
which for many years has pushed for global economic deregulation
within the World Trade Organization, the G-7 and the OECD, now
has its sights set on the United Nations. "The way the United
Nations regards international business has changed fundamentally.
This shift towards a stance more favourable to business is being
nurtured from the very top", ICC Secretary General Maria Livanos
Cattaui concluded with satisfaction in a column in the
International Herald Tribune in February. Cattaui quotes UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan in saying that the time is ripe for
consultation between the UN and business.[1]
Cattaui's optimism was confirmed the same week in a February 9th
meeting of 25 ICC business leaders with a heavyweight UN
delegation headed by Kofi Annan, heralded as the first step in "a
systematic dialogue". The ICC delegation included captains of
industry from Coca Cola, Unilever, McDonalds, Goldman Sachs and
Rio Tinto Zinc. In a joint statement, the ICC and the UN
Secretary General stated that "broad political and economic
changes have opened up new opportunities for dialogue and
cooperation between the United Nations and the private sector".
The two sides committed themselves to "forge a close global
partnership to secure greater business input into the world's
economic decision-making and boost the private sector in the
least developed countries". The industry representatives used the
occasion to argue for "establishing an effective regulatory
framework for globalization, including investment, capital
markets, competition, intellectual property rights and trade
facilitation".[2] The ICC has worked with UN institutions before,
but not on the highest level and not on the potentially very wide
range of political matters around which 'partnership' now seems
to have emerged.[3]
ICC and UNCTAD Hand-in-Hand
One of the concrete projects agreed upon at the February
consultation between the UN and ICC is a joint series of business
investment guides to the least developed countries, to be
produced by the UN Centre for Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and
the ICC. The aim of these guides is to increase foreign direct
investment flows into the 48 countries which the UN considers
'least developed', 38 of which are African. The guides "are to
contain accurate, objective, investor-oriented and comparative
information on investment opportunities and conditions in the
countries covered".
Another example of the new fruitful cooperation arose in March,
when the ICC and UNCTAD presented the results of a joint
"worldwide survey of leading multinational companies" which
showed that corporations had not lost interest in investing in
East and Southeast Asia. ICC Secretary-General Cattaui concluded
from the survey of 198 TNCs that "business still sees enormous
investment opportunities to be derived from the projected growth
of Asian markets in the 21st century".[4] The survey shows that
34% of European firms, and 19% of US and Japan-based TNCs plan to
increase their activities in Asia. A senior UNCTAD investment
expert explained that: "In the short and medium term, the lower
costs for multinationals in the most affected countries create
immediate incentives for additional direct investment."[5] UNCTAD
Secretary-General Rubens Ricupero said that the interest
expressed by TNCs "augurs well for recovery in the region".[6]
Geneva Business Dialogue
The most ambitious event this year in the ICC's strategy for
forging closer links with UN and other international institutions
is the Geneva Business Dialogue, a conference slated to take
place on September 23-24 1998. "The Geneva Business Dialogue", a
press release explains, "is the ICC's initiative to create a
successful mechanism to deal with the effects, promises and
progress of globalization". Participants at this conference,
which organizers plan to hold annually, will be from "the ICC and
the many important international organizations based in Geneva".
7] ICC president Maucher amplifies: "During two days of intensive
meetings in September, we shall bring together the heads of
international companies and the leaders of international
organizations so that business experiences and expertise is
channelled into the decision-making process for the global
economy."[8] The programme -- details are yet to be released will
deal with "some of the significant and contentious issues raised
by an increasingly integrated international economy". 9]
The ICC boasts that the initiative "is welcomed at the highest
level of the World Trade Organization, the United Nations system
and other international bodies", and the preliminary participants
list confirms that the Geneva Business Dialogue will bring
together influential players including EU Commissioner
Yves-Thibault de Silguy, WTO Director-General Renato de Ruggiero,
high-level officials from the World Bank and the Industrial
Standards Organization (ISO), as well as presidents, prime
ministers and other top ministers from the US, Finland, Hungary,
Thailand and Switzerland. Among the many high-level UN
representatives are UNCTAD Secretary-General Rubens Ricupero and
UN Under-Secretary General Vladimir Petrovsky. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan will address the dialogue through a satellite
connection. In addition to Helmut Maucher himself, business will
be represented by CEOs from Unilever, ICI, Mitsubishi, Goldman
Sachs, Lyonnaise des Eaux, Norsk Hydro, Siemens, BASF, Shell and
many other global corporations.
Maucher's Ambitions
The new "partnership" between the ICC and the UN is the result of
the former's ambitious strategy pursued since Helmut Maucher took
the helm in early 1997. Maucher, who recently left his job as CEO
of Nestli but remains on the board of directors, felt that the
ICC had hitherto been neither sufficiently influential nor
visible in the media.[10] Maucher has observed the efficient work
of environmental and human rights NGOs within the UN system with
great concern. In one of his first interviews as ICC president,
Maucher warned: "We have to be careful that they do not get too
much influence".[11]
Within both the WTO and the UN, the ICC is pushing for the
implementation of "a framework of global rules" which it plans to
help draft, "as the only organization qualified to speak for
every business sector in all parts of the world". "Governments
have to understand", Maucher argues, "that business is not just
another pressure group but a resource that will help them set the
right rules".[12] The joint statement between the UN Secretary-
General and the ICC clarifies the ICC's reasons for wanting to be
involved in global decision making: "Business has a strong
interest in multilateral cooperation, including standard-setting
through the United Nations and other intergovernmental
institutions and international conventions on the environment and
other global and transborder issues."
When Maucher became vice president of the ICC in 1995, he
immediately dove into a reorganization process. He brought in a
new Secretary-General, Maria Livanos Cattaui, who for many years
had organized the World Economic Forum in Davos and like Maucher
has a wide ranging network of international contacts. Maucher
himself divides his time as ICC president with his leadership of
the European Roundtable of Industrialists. (ERT; for background
information see "Europe, Inc.", CEO, 1997) Maucher's ambitions
for the ICC also include formal status within the World Trade
Organization (WTO): "We want neither to be the secret girlfriend
of the WTO", Maucher said in an interview, "nor should the ICC
have to enter the World Trade Organization through the servants
entrance."[13] To pursue this more intimate relationship with the
WTO, Maucher has made former GATT general director Arthur Dunkel
chairman of the ICC's commission on trade. Dunkel is also a board
member of Nestli.
Shared Vision?
The ICC, with its strategic cooptation of the message spread by
NGOs and people's movements, is attempting to use the growing
consensus that global deregulation is creating serious social and
environmental problems to its advantage. As Maria Livanos Cattaui
described the ICC's new cooperation with the UN, "the dialogue is
coming not a moment too soon. Globalization has the potential to
bring immense benefits to the human race. But as recent events in
East Asia have demonstrated, it can swiftly magnify local crises
into problems affecting the entire world economy. Hence the need
for a framework of rules on investment, capital markets,
competition policy and a host of other areas."
The ICC's agenda of deregulated markets -- in the interest of
hardly anyone besides the large transnational corporations united
in the ICC -- is presented an idealistic strategy to benefit all
people. Cattaui disturbingly claims to have UN support for the
ICC's vision: "What makes the dialogue possible is the perception
by both sides that open markets are a precondition for spreading
more widely the benefits of globalization, for integrating
developing countries into the world economy, and for improving
living standards of all the world's peoples, and in particular
the poor."
The joint UN-ICC statement seems to confirm a wide-ranging
consensus, as it emphasizes the importance of "the effective
functioning of the global market place and on the existence of
open, equitable, inclusive economic systems, based on the free
flow of trade, investment for economic growth and development and
the avoidance of protectionist pressures".
The UN seems to have largely given up worrying about the growing
economic dominance of transnational corporations worldwide. Until
1993, the UN still had its Centre on Transnational Corporations
(UNCTC) which carried out research and served the Commission on
Transnational Corporations, an intergovernmental body with the
mandate of developing a Code of Conduct for TNCs. Corporations
were extremely hostile to the UNCTC, which also developed
environmental guidelines for TNCs and promoted restricting
foreign investment in the South Africa under the apartheid
regime. In 1993 the UNCTC was dismantled as part of a
'reorganization', and UNCTAD became the new UN focal point for
work on TNCs. UNCTAD, however, does not address the regulation of
TNC activities, but rather works closely with them in order to
stimulate foreign investment flows to the Third World. Work on
the Code of Conduct on TNCs has stopped entirely.
With this "systematic dialogue" with the UN, the ICC has made a
disturbing leap forward in its desire to become the legitimate
global representative of "business". However, the ICC does by no
means represent all businesses, but principally only the largest
transnational corporations. The interests of these footloose
global players differ significantly from those businesses which
are grounded in and oriented towards a local market. But there
are other fundamental questions besides whether or not the ICC is
really "the world business organization". Is it appropriate for
corporations -- which are supposed to compete, adapt and
diversify -- to organize themselves in what effectively equals a
global political monopoly? And concerning the ICC's ambitions for
"global regulation": should corporations not simply be following
the rules -- local, national or global - shaped by democratically
elected governments assisted by citizens organisations?
-----
Notes
-----
1. Maria Livanos Cattaui: "UN-Business Partnership Forged on
Global Economy", February 6 in International Herald Tribune.
2. "UN-Business Partnership to Boost Economic Development",
ICC statement 9 February 1998.
3. For instance the ICC signed an agreement with the United
Nations Development Programme in September 1992 "under
which UNDP provides financial and practical support for
ICC efforts to strengthen the private sector and chambers
of commerce in developing countries and in eastern Europe
and the former Soviet Union", ICC website. The Inter-
national Bureau of Chambers of Commerce (IBCC), which
is a part of the ICC, is playing a leading role in
implementing the agreement.
4. ICC and UNCTAD Press Release: "Leading Multinationals Vote
their Confidence in Asia", 18 March 1998.
5. Idem
6. Idem
7. Helmut Maucher: "Ruling by Consent", guest column in the
Financial Times, 6 December 1997, FT Exporter, p. 2.
8. "Die Globalisierung Verlangt eine Kraftigere Stimme der
Wirtschaft", Frankfurter Algemeine 12 February 1997, p. 13.
9. Idem
10. Helmut Maucher: "Ruling by Consent", guest column in the
Financial Times, 6 December 1997, FT Exporter, p. 2.
11. Idem
12. Idem
13. "Die Globalisierung Verlangt eine Kraftigere Stimme der
Wirtschaft", Frankfurter Algemeine 12 February 1997, p.13.
---------------------------------------
Subject: NESTLI AND THE UNITED NATIONS
Date: Mon, 27 Apr 1998
From: Corporate Europe Observatory <•••@••.•••>
CORPORATE EUROPE OBSERVER ISSUE 1, APRIL 1998
_________________________________________________________________
NESTLI AND THE UNITED NATIONS:
PARTNERSHIP OR PENETRATION?
_________________________________________________________________
Nestli -- one of the world's largest transnational corporations
-- is the long-time target of an international boycott campaign
resulting from its unethical marketing of infant foods.
Consequently, the member groups of IBFAN (International Baby Food
Action Network) which are active participants in the Nestli
Boycott are disturbed about Nestli's co-sponsorship and hosting
of a United Nations workshop on women and sustainable development
in November last year.
The UN workshop, entitled "Mechanisms of Support to Women's
Participation in Sustainable Development", took place from 5-7
November 1997 at Nestli's International Research Centre in
Lausanne, Switzerland. Nestli fully dominated the workshop --
paying for all meals and lodging plus air fares for some
participants; providing name tags with the Nestli logo;
presenting the company's research and development activities;
organizing a visit to the Nestli Research Centre; and hosting a
reception.
Overall, the workshop had the feel of an internal Nestli meeting
with token UN sponsorship. Although the mining corporation
Glencort was an official co-sponsor, this company was far less
prominent than Nestli. The eight Nestli observers present,
fortified by several others with close ties to the company,
outnumbered the six UN officials. The workshop -- with 40
participants, half of which were NGOs from developing countries
-- was closed to the public, and one UN-accredited journalist was
denied access to the proceedings.
NGO Protests
Since United Nations activities carried out within the framework
of its mandate must be paid from the organization's own funds,
and possible conflicts of interest must be avoided at all times,
one wonders why the UN workshop was not held at Geneva's Palais
des Nations, one of the most prestigious and best-equipped
conference centres in the world. When NGOs heard that the event
would be both hosted and sponsored by Nestli, they began to ask
questions.
The workshop's stated objective was "to provide a forum to
identify and promote viable mechanisms for private sector support
of women's participation in sustainable development". The
aide-memoire from the UN Department of Social and Economic
Affairs was subtitled "Exploring Strategies for Cooperative
Partnerships in Environmentally Sustainable Development", and
requested that NGOs fund participants from the South -- "women
involved in promoting small-scale entrepreneurial activities at
the grassroots level in developing countries".
Upon hearing about the workshop, the NGO Working Group on Women
for the ECE Region expressed its doubts about the role of baby
food and mining companies in building environmentally sustainable
development, warning against the probable commercial agenda of
the co-sponsors. Additionally, the International Baby Food Action
Network (IBFAN) identified a host of problems attached to
Nestli's co-sponsorship. IBFAN has many years of experience in
monitoring the compliance of the baby food industry with the 1981
International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes. The
International Code is the UN's code for the protection and
promotion of breastfeeding in the face of inappropriate marketing
practices. The promotion of baby milks and infant foods is not
only damaging to women's health, but also causes untold misery
due to artificial feeding related sicknesses and death -- also
known as the bottle-baby syndrome.
IBFAN has been investigating the marketing practices of the baby
food industry over the past 17 years, and has continuously
documented its sustained and wilful violations of the
International Code. Nestli has emerged as the most systematic
corporate offender in terms of non-compliance with the Code and
subsequent World Health Assembly resolutions. Since Nestli holds
the lion's share of the market, its irresponsible marketing
practices harm more babies and mothers worldwide than those of
any other company.
Yet despite protest letters to the UN, it proved impossible to
prevent Nestli's involvement in the workshop. IBFAN later
expressed its concern in writing to Dr. Nitin Desai, UN
Under-Secretary for Social and Economic Affairs, and UN Secretary
General Kofi Annan. In response, Dr. Desai requested "practical
inputs and insights on guidelines and criteria" as the UN
proceeds "along this largely uncharted path". At present, IBFAN
is working to provide just these insights.
Opposing the Infant Formula Industry
Relations between the infant formula industry and UN institutions
are not uniformly rosy. UNICEF, for example, implements a de
facto boycott of corporations not respecting the World Health
Assembly Code. Following an October 1997 meeting with Nestli, the
Executive Director of UNICEF sent a letter to the company stating
that differences of opinion "continue to raise a barrier to the
establishment of any kind of working relationship between UNICEF
and Nestli".
The 1997 NGO report Cracking the Code provides extensive evidence
of continued violations of the World Health Assembly code on
marketing of breastmilk substitutes in countries like Bangladesh,
Poland, Thailand and South Africa. The baby food industry --
organized in the Association of Infant Food Manufacturers (IFM)
-- has rejected the report as "inaccurate". The IFM denies the
responsibility as set out in the Code for industry to monitor its
own practices, but unequivocally insists that Code implementation
is a question of national legislation in the country under
question. Yet hypocritically, the IFM -- and Nestli in particular
-- is presently attempting to undermine national legislation for
the implementation of the Code in Uganda, Pakistan and Zimbabwe.
In an ongoing court case in India, Nestli has even challenged the
constitutionality of the national law.
IBFAN is seeking allies in our attempts to keep the United
Nations free of corporate dominance. We feel that it is
preferable to swim against the tide and risk drowning than to go
with the corporate flow and lose our principles. We welcome
insight and practical ideas from other NGOs about how to bring
effective pressure to bear upon the UN system.
For more information, contact:
IBFAN
c/o GIFA (Geneva Infant Feeding Association)
P.O. Box 157, 1211 Geneva 19, Switzerland
Phone: +41 22 798 91 64
Fax: +41 22 978 44 43,
E-mail: <•••@••.•••>
Website: <http://www.gn.apc.org/ibfan>
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