|
10.30 hrs, January 28th 2003, Davos,
Switzerland.
friends of the earth (england, wales and
northern ireland) withdraws from world
economic forum
Legal action against WEF could
follow
Tony Juniper, Director of Friends of the
Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland
today issued the following statement:
Following the events and experience of the
past six days I have decided not to attend
any further annual meetings of the World
Economic Forum.
The decision to attend this year was not
taken lightly. Many people in our movement
see the Forum as an elitist and illegitimate
gathering that first and foremost advances
the interests of the rich and powerful at the
expense of the environment and the least well
off. In coming to Davos, I intended to
challenge the thinking and ideas of some of
the world?s most powerful people about the
need for urgent change.
I found, however, that many WEF
participants were unwilling to properly
consider new ideas or to engage in a truly
participative way. Many WEF members appear
unable to embrace a new way and seek only to
cling to outdated and unsustainable ideas
based on an obsession with unending and
unsustainable economic growth and with
securing ever increasing financial returns
for the already rich. In other words I found
that many of the concerns of my colleagues
were indeed true.
It seems that the bottom line for the WEF
really is all about the bottom line. Long
term protection of the world environment and
delivering global justice are at best
secondary considerations.
Only four months ago at the Johannesburg
Earth Summit, many of the corporations
present in Davos repeated promises they made
at Rio in 1992. They said they would
implement a sustainable development agenda
and that they could do this without new
regulations to promote corporate
accountability. There was little evidence in
Davos that such a shift is occurring.
Ecosystem damage, climate change and the
exploitation of poorer countries continues
apace often driven by the interests of the
global corporations. And while the global
corporations demand regulations to grant them
ever freer market access, there is resistance
to the implementation of official measures to
promote accountability and sustainability. At
last year's annual meeting, some of the
world's largest corporations set themselves
the aim of embracing environmental and social
goals, yet many of these firms have since
then been involved in environmentally and
socially regressive business practices.
Nestlé's decision to seek repayment of a 6
million dollar loan from famine-struck
Ethiopia, WestLB's involvement with a
pipeline through primary tropical forest in
Ecuador, the Alfa Group's association with
the Gallician oil spill caused by the use of
an ageing tanker and BP's aggressive opening
of new fossil fuel supplies while accepting
the reality of climate change are all
examples that give us cause to doubt the
likely effectiveness of voluntary commitments
towards diminishing the negative impacts of
business on the world.
I have also been struck by how the notion
of "dialogue" is, for many of the WEF member
companies, very much a one-way process. There
is every impression that the global
corporations are only interested in
"dialogue" when they set the rules of
engagement and the agenda to be discussed.
Yes, I was invited to attend the WEF and
chose to use it as an opportunity to seek
change, but "attempts by campaigners to
persuade corporate executives to give an
account of their actions at the Public Eye on
Davos fell on deaf ears " they declined an
invitation to attend. If there is any
dialogue here in Davos, it is principally
between the heads of powerful companies and a
selection of invited government
ministers.
The restrictive nature of information
dissemination and the lack of transparency in
the WEF is a source of serious concern. If
dissenting voices are suppressed through
restricting freedom of information, how can
they be heard and what impact can they have?
In this regard, there is little opportunity
to influence the real agenda of the WEF. For
example, what was the outcome of secret
discussions between Government Ministers and
senior executives of huge oil corporations.
On the eve of possible war, we know that oil
is a key geopolitical issue. What was
discussed, what was decided and how will the
decisions affect the public?
Finally, as a result of a complaint I made
to the WEF last Friday about how I was
detained without warning by security police,
the organizers chose to issue a defamatory
press statement containing falsehoods and
inaccuracies that are likely to damage my
reputation and that of Friends of the Earth.
The refusal of the WEF to retract and
apologize for these remarks by 9.00am this
morning despite our having provided them with
ample opportunity and reason to do so, leaves
us no alternative but to consider ourselves
fully justified in commencing legal
proceedings.
Certainly we have, in recent years, helped
to change the agenda of the WEF and how it
relates to society. But the Berne
Declaration, Friends of the Earth and others
have done this principally through pressure
from the outside, not by being so much
decoration on the inside. We have yet to
change the real business of the Forum and
what its members ultimately stand for, or the
unaccountable and non-transparent manner in
which it operates. Considering the awesome
economic and political influence wielded by
the WEF participants, it cannot be in the
interests of society for it to continue to
operate in its present form.
My belief now, having participated in the
last two annual meetings, is that such
changes to an institution like the WEF can
only be brought about through participatory
grassroots action on the outside rather than
by seeking to convince a mainly arrogant
all-powerful elite from the inside where they
control information and conduct discussions
of importance to everyone in secret
Tony Juniper, Tuesday 28th January,
2003.
Contact Details:
Tony Juniper: + 44 7712843207
Craig Bennett +44 7810558250
Miriam Behrens
Pro Natura - Friends of the Earth
Switzerland
mobile: +41 (0)79 216'02'06
|
