Posted on 22-10-2002
What
NZ Government Didn't Say About WSSD
by Jane Kelsey*
A high-powered government delegation, led by Environment Minister
Marian
Hobbs, recently returned from the Earth Summit in Johannesburg
with a
Programme of Action for sustainable development that presents
economic
globalisation as a solution. Professor of Law Jane Kelsey puts
the summit
under the microscope and finds it decidedly flawed.
What the Government failed to tell us about the Earth Summit
in Johannesburg.
Having recently attended the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
Trade (MFAT)
briefing on the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)
in
Johannesburg, I was appalled at how sanitised it was. The briefings
glossed
over the strong challenges presented inside and outside the
Summit to the
idea that sustainable development requires even more globalisation.
The
summit was meant to provide the next steps forward, based on
the
progressive agenda of the Rio Earth Summit a decade ago. Instead
of Rio +
10, the summit became known as Doha + 10, a reference to ten
months since
the launching of a new round of free trade negotiations at the
WTO
ministerial meeting in Doha (Qatar).
There was nothing progressive about the process or the outcome.
The people
for whom sustainable development is a matter of life and death
– poor and
small island countries, indigenous nations, peasant farmers,
local
communities– were marginalised throughout the summit. So were
their demands
for debt relief, genuine agrarian reform, rights to food security
and clean
drinking water, enforceable controls over trans-national companies,
protection of indigenous rights over biodiversity, an end to
dumping of
GE-grain on countries facing starvation and much more. Even
the powerful
Western environmental lobby was sidelined at a venue miles from
the main
meeting.
Delegations representing poorer countries objected that the
UN’s relatively
open processes had been subverted by the kind of bullying, manipulation
and
backroom dealings that pervade the WTO. Venezuela’s President
Chavez,
speaking for the Group of 77 poorer countries, called the Summit
a
‘dialogue of the deaf’, complaining that most heads of state
and
governments had no influence on the Plan of Implementation.
Predictably, those who dominated were the major powers, especially
the
United States, EC and Japan, with strong support from Australia
and New
Zealand on issues of globalisation. Sponsors, such as BMW, Hewlett
Packard
and Daimler Chrysler, provided an up-market corporate image.
The business
end of ‘civil society’, re-branded through such alliances as
the World
Business Council for Sustainable Development, and even Mining,
Minerals and
Sustainable Development, proclaimed their conversion to social
responsibility.
The epitome of corporate ‘green washing’ was a report from the
Chairmen of
DuPont, Shell and Anova Holdings: ‘Walking the Talk: The Business
Case for
Sustainable Development’. Their solution was ‘to mobilize markets
in favour
of sustainability, leveraging the power of innovation and global
markets
for the benefit of everyone – not just the developed world.
This means a
further liberalization of the market – a move that would be
condemned by
anti-globalization protestors'. Indeed. The Summit’s location
in
post-apartheid Johannesburg underscored this paradox. Some 20,000
people
marched from the depressed township of Alexandra to the summit
venue at
elite Sandton to be met by some 8000 police, plus tanks, helicopters
and
barricades. At the fore were a group from Soweto where privatisation
of
water and electricity had already seen terminations for non-payment
and
outbreaks of disease, such as cholera. The official delegations
were
quarantined from this ‘uncivil society’ and oblivious to their
warnings
about global apartheid.
The champions of the WTO, including New Zealand, emerged victorious.
Abundant evidence that links global free markets to deepening
inequality,
environmental destruction, corporate corruption, collapsing
infrastructure,
social crises and political chaos was swept aside with the blanket
assertion that trade liberalisation enhances sustainable development.
Views
ignored include those of bodies like the World Health Assembly,
UN
Commission on Human Rights and UNCTAD who fear the social impacts
of WTO
agreements on ‘development rights’ to education, water, health
care and
medicines.
By endorsing the Doha agenda, the Summit effectively sanctioned
proposals
to extend the power of major corporations over core services
and guarantee
rights to foreign investors, with no corresponding legal responsibility.
This was confirmed by the shift in focus from Type-I treaties
that are
binding under international law to so-called Type-II outcomes
of
‘stakeholder partnerships’. Notionally these ‘partnerships’
include
indigenous peoples, local governments and (corporate-friendly)
non-government organisations. In practice, they are designed
to forge the
bond between governments and corporations that Walking the Talk
proposed.
The Summit’s targets on energy, water and food all assumed private
provision by profit-driven transnational companies. An obvious
alternative
– to cancel the unpayable and often unconscionable debt – had
already been
ruled out at the Conference on Financing of Development in Monterrey
in
March 2002.
Sustainable development became code for corporations assuming
more control
over resources, not less. At a time when corporate corruption
dominates the
headlines and self-regulation is visibly failing internationally,
and in
New Zealand, this is an extraordinary coup for big business.
Already a
‘Walking the Talk’ forum in Auckland has discussed ‘the implications
for
business – and the opportunities’ arising from the Summit. More
are
scheduled, presumably with support from a Third Way Government
committed to
light-handed regulation and public/private infrastructure projects.
I’m not opposing the idea of businesses becoming socially responsible.
But
New Zealanders should not be seduced into believing that companies
like
Waste Management and Shell have been reborn as responsible corporate
citizens. Their power needs to be wound back and their actions
regulated,
not expanded further in the guise of sustainable development
and social
responsibility.
* Jane Kelsey is a Professor of Law at Auckland University and
a member of
the Action, Research and Education Network of Aotearoa (ARENA).
Further
information about the WSSD, and the effects of globalisation
on New Zealand
generally, is available by contacting ARENA at www.arena.org.nz
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