Face the Facts! 12 - Dealing with the facts: First Steps to Global Economic Reform
How the Global Economy Harms People and the Environment
#12, Wednesday May 26, 1999
Dealing with the Facts:
First Steps to Global Economic Reform
Once a week for the past 11 weeks you have received a topical review of the consequences of globalization: how the global financial crisis and IMF policies have thrown millions out of work and exacerbated environmental degradation; how trade agreements have undercut environmental standards; how U.S. tax dollars fund environmental and social destruction; and how the public is concerned with current trends in the global economy.
Taken in sum, the processes of globalization
place financial and big business interests on
a pedestal above the interests of the public,
the environment, and small and medium size
businesses.
Action Items:
- Governments should grant international debt relief untied to structural adjustment;
- At the G8 meeting in Cologne next month, world leaders will consider reforms of the global financial architecture. The IMF and any other international organization should not pursue capital account liberalization. Governments should consider measures such as capital controls and a speculation tax that would protect the real economy from global financial volatility;
- At the WTO ministerial in Seattle this fall, governments should evaluate and fix the flaws of the trade regime instead of launching new liberalization negotiations to expand the power of the WTO;
- The SEC should enforce existing social and environmental disclosure requirements for publicly traded companies, while broadening and deepening those standards. The SEC should also take a leadership role in ensuring that environmental and social disclosure is integrated into international efforts to harmonize securities regulations.
For more information contact:
(202)783-7400, Andrea Durbin ext. 209
1025 Vermont Ave., NW, Suite 300,
Washington, DC 20005
