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corporate campaigners create commotion in new york

world economic forum and wssd prepcom hear foei's perspective

miriam behrens, foe switzerland and matt phillips & helen burley, foe england, wales and northern ireland

who's in charge?
When the six thousand New York police officers took to the streets you might have reasonably assumed they were deployed to guard the government leaders attending the second preparatory meeting for the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development. In fact, this considerable force was actually protecting the world's real power brokers: the CEOs of the world's thousand largest corporations, who met with heads of states and institutions at the Waldorf Astoria hotel during the annual World Economic Forum (WEF).

As it turned out, both of these high-profile meetings, the massive security forces, and the unfolding Enron scandal were helpful backdrops to FoEI's corporate accountability work earlier this year in New York.

angling for a corporate convention
At the well-attended NGO strategy meeting hosted by FoEI at the UN Church Centre, we were pleased that most of the 50 participating groups responded with excitement to our proposal for a campaign on binding rules for corporate accountability.

One outcome of the meeting was a two-page “consensus paper” that asks governments attending the WSSD to declare their commitment to socially and environmentally responsible investment and corporate behaviour. The paper urges them to do so by negotiating a legally binding framework for corporate accountability -- in the form of a convention.

Using our consensus paper, we worked with other NGOs to make corporate accountability a high priority for the WSSD. And in fact, corporate accountability was the only issue that garnered substantial discussion during the multi-stakeholder-dialogue! Apart from the business sector, all “major groups” agreed with the idea in general terms.

The consensus paper was placed on government desks during the preparatory meeting for the WSSD. Corporate accountability soon appeared in a dominant position on the list of issues to be addressed at the negotiations, and governments began to react. G77 countries were generally positive, as most felt uncomfortable with a purely voluntary route to corporate accountability. Some governments, such as the UK, reported fierce background lobbying from business, which wanted the issue thrown out right away. JUSCANZ (Japan, US, Canada, New Zealand) countries battled to remove the idea of binding corporate accountability from the agenda immediately, and OECD countries instantly nullified the proposal.

major fuss
We spent the second week fighting to keep the topic alive, and some helpful language did appear in the “Chairman's Summary” which marked the summit's conclusion. Delegates commented that we'd successfully created a major fuss. Corporate accountability is now on the agenda, they felt, and they said they would take the issue home to their governments.

The consensus paper can now be used to create a platform for a coherent NGO campaign on binding regulations. More urgently, however, we need to identify the arguments that appeal to G77governments and others. We need to answer key questions such as, “Why binding regulations and not voluntary? Why international? And how to do it?” Not only must we let governments know what binding corporate accountability should encompass, we must also now support this case and find language they can focus on.

the weakest link
Imitating a popular game show, FoEI welcomed participants to the opening of the World Economic Forum with ten impersonators of the programme's bossy host, and challenged business participants to play “The Weakest Link”. Standing outside the police cordon at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, we exposed the weakest actions of corporations, and called for global rules to strengthen corporate accountability.

While government and business leaders enjoyed a gourmet feast inside, FoEI, Amnesty International and the Service Employees International Union spelt out the damage being done to communities and the environment by the unregulated behaviour of international corporations.

third public eye
For the third year running, FoE groups from Switzerland, England and the US helped organize the “Public Eye on Davos” conference – taking place this year in New York, instead of the WEF's previous setting of Davos, Switzerland.

Unfolding parallel to the WEF's annual meeting, the Public Eye highlighted the negative impacts of one-sided economic globalization and explored alternative models. Corporate accountability was the main theme. A panel organized by FoE Switzerland included FoE England, Wales and Northern Ireland's Tony Juniper, who discussed legally binding rules for transnational corporations with Peter Madden (Ministerial Adviser from the British Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs), Sathyu Sarangi (Bhopal Group for Information and Action, India), Yin Shao Loong (Third World Network, Malaysia) and Greg Palast (author and journalist, UK).

An estimated 1500 people attended the Public Eye conference, reflecting the high level of interest in an alternative agenda. Interestingly, a number of business leaders drifted in from the WEF, reportedly bored by the nature of discussions in that forum.
 
corporate challenges
The culmination of FoEI's corporate campaigning in New York was taking our challenge directly to the corporations inside the Waldorf Astoria, where global leaders and industry talked business beneath the hotel's grand chandeliers.

Tony Juniper and Pro Natura/FoE Switzerland's Martin Boesch took advantage of their official invitations to the WEF to deliver 1200 letters addressed to business leaders inside the hotel. The letters called on chief executives to express their support for global rules for business, and for the protection of people and the environment, by May 1, 2002. FoEI continues to await a response.