More than 4 years have passed
since the UN Secretary General first announced
the Global Compact, a high level interaction
between the United Nations and the business
community. From the start, various NGOs
have been raising questions about its alleged
benefits and its risks, about its underlying
rationale and concrete approach. This publication,
commissioned by Centre Europe-Tiers Monde
(CETIM), Geneva Infant Feeding Association
(GIFA-IBFAN) and Déclaration de Berne
does not aim to summarize all of these concerns.
It rather suggests focusing on two main
lines of questioning. These two line emerge
from the debates between the Global Compact
proponents and its critics:
What
is the value of the Global Compact in terms
of changing corporate practices? More specifically,
is it an arrangement that helps shift corporate
practices towards the better - or is it
rather an arrangement that helps corporations
continue to do their business as usual and
moreover confers on them additional protection
from legally-binding regulation and public
pressure?
What is the relationship
between the Global Compact and global democratic
governance? In other words: Does the Global
Compact enhance - or undermine - efforts
to promote democratic decision-making in
a globalising world?
Both these
questions are addressed at a theoretical
level as well as by a case study focusing
on the gaps between words and deeds, illustrated
with the case of one of the latest prominent
participants of the Global Compact: the
food and beverage transnational Nestlé.
Dr. Judith Richter is author of Holding
Corporations Accountable: Corporate Conduct,
International Codes and Citizen Action,
Zed Books, London and New York, 2001 and
‘We the Peoples’ or ‘We the corporations’,
Critical reflections on UN-business partnerships,
IBFAN-GIFA, January 2003. |
