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