The Road From Seattle

UN Chronicle, Spring, 2000 by Ann Marie Erb-Leoncavallo

"Seattle showed all of us that economic forces and social priorities must be reconciled. Doing so requires that we devise innovative approaches such as the Global Compact", said John Ruggie, former Dean of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, who is a key adviser to the Secretary-General. Mr. Ruggie, who has written extensively on international affairs and the role of the United Nations and the United States in the post-cold-war era, is one of the key architects of the Global Compact, along with trade expert Georg Kell, who spent 10 years at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) before working with the Secretary-General. Mr. Kell was one of the officials who accompanied Mr. Annan on his trip to Seattle, where he was unable to deliver his statement due to the chaos in the streets.

Mr. Ruggie and Mr. Kell argue that expanding global markets requires a social response. In a recent policy paper, they contend that the significant expansion of global economic rule-making over the past decade, which basically enables global markets to function, has not been matched by comparable efforts on behalf of other global concerns, such as the environment, human rights or poverty, or for that matter food safety and international cartels. While the major capitalist countries have the domestic and institutional capacity to protect themselves from the worst negative effects of this imbalance, they claim the rest of the world is far more vulnerable. As national economies have become more integrated into a global whole, Ruggie, Kell and others see a dear need for international institutions to replace the uneven patchwork of national rules and regulations. They view the Global Compact, which calls on corporations and others to work with the United Nations in applying environmental, labour and human rights standards, as a step in this direction.

Since it was launched last year, the Global Compact has gained considerable support. Business partners include the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the International Organization of Employers, the World Business Council on Sustainable Development and Business for Social Responsibility. In a message delivered to Mr. Annan in January, the ICC urged the upcoming Millennium Assembly to ensure that the United Nations takes the lead in supporting a rules-based open system of international trade and investment, while opposing all forms of protectionism. Relevant UN agencies and programmes, and not the multilateral trading system, should be the recognized global institutions for raising environmental and labour standards and promoting human rights, the message states. It also says that the United Nations should give special attention to capacity-building in least developed countries, particularly in human resources, physical infrastructure and institutional reform, to help them raise and attract investment a nd to link to the global information society.

Other key supporters of the Global Compact include such influential groups as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Lawyer's Committee for Human Rights, Oxfam and the World Wildlife Fund for Nature. Another important partner is the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions, which has 125 million members in 145 countries.