More Dangerous Liaisons

Mercier's speech at UNCTAD was given as the organisation considered one of 4 key themes for its ministerial conference in June - partnerships. This means that UNCTAD is following suit, as other UN organisations and corporations are in the early flush of excitement as their partnerships grow. As 2003 came to a close the UN General Assembly endorsed the Secretary General's report Towards Global Partnerships which provides a favourable analysis of this growing trend. However, in the New Year, one former Secretary General, Boutros Boutros Ghali, called the UN's partnerships with business "dangerous liaisons". That was in the foreword to a book funded and co-published by the UN system itself.17 Report author, Ann Zammit, argues that current relations between business and the UN put "development at risk" unless they are fundamentally rethought. Since the UN began working more closely with the private sector there have been a range of concerns and criticisms, sometimes featured in these annual reviews, but this extensive critique from within the UN is a significant development. Given the growing concern, one co-author of this review, Jem Bendell, published a paper that reviewed the various criticisms and some possible solutions for the UN's key initiative in this area, the Global Compact.18 Five key criticisms of the Compact are identified. First, some argue that it is wrong for business with questionable practices to participate in the Compact, that there is little monitoring of their commitments, and that participation can thus diffuse criticism of individual companies. Second, some suggest that the Compact could compound the power of large companies in the global economy, with negative implications for development. Third, that key issues necessary to improving the practice of all corporate actors are being sidelined or undermined, such as macro-economic questions and concerns about mandatory corporate accountability. Fourth, that the Compact is allowing its own agenda to be shaped by business, as well as other parts of the UN, and permitting the organisation's name to be used by some companies to promote their own perspectives and interests. Fifth, that these problems cannot be addressed while the Compact is not itself more accountable to the UN system of agencies and member States.

A range of responses to these challenges are suggested, and a new agenda mapped out that would ensure that the Global Compact addresses the systemic governance problems of the global economy. The paper argues that the Compact would not be necessary if the UN's government delegations truly represented the long-term interests of their peoples and were able to work together on issues of common concern. The assertion is that with appropriate information on the situation of our planet, people would not choose to be represented in ways that undermine the global sustainable development of humankind. However, for a variety of reasons that relate directly to the power of corporations and global finance, governments do not seem to represent their people's longer-term interests. As governments are hampered in serving "we the peoples of the United Nations," freeing the democratic potential of member governments from negative pressures of global finance and transnational corporations should be a core objective of the UN secretariat's relations with business.