from www.newint.org

Who runs the world?
There’s a reason why more and more protesters are showing up at the gatherings and offices of corporate lobby groups. Made up of the movers and shakers from large transnational corporations, these groups shape policy to serve their own interests in ways which go far beyond legitimate political input. Citizens are now playing catch-up, pointing out that these groups have no legitimacy to write the rules of global governance. We shine a light on a few of the most powerful.


The architects of globalization
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)

Corporate Europe Observatory is an NGO research group based in Amsterdam. For more information on lobby groups see their book, Europe, Inc. – Regional and Global Restructuring and the Rise of Corporate Power (Pluto Press, 2000). Their newsletter, Corporate Europe Observer (www.corporateeurope.org) is a goldmine of information.
• The Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1919, is the single largest and most influential international corporate lobby group. This self-proclaimed ‘world business organization’ – implying a self-image of semi-officialdom – has thousands of member companies in over 130 countries. It is dominated by the world’s most powerful transnational corporations, including General Motors, Novartis, Bayer and Nestlé. The political clout of its members has secured it permanent representation at the World Trade Organization and unparalleled access at other key economic and political institutions in the global economy, including the G8 and the United Nations.

• The ICC has taken the lead in attacking the global-justice movement and its challenge to corporate-biased international trade and investment rules. A key strategy has been its successful charm offensive towards the UN as a prominent partner in Kofi Annan’s Global Compact between the UN and transnational corporations, launched in January 2000. The total absence of monitoring and enforcement mechanisms makes the Compact an ideal ‘greenwash’ instrument. The partnership with the UN should be taken in context with the group’s long and ongoing history of vigorously lobbying to weaken international environmental treaties, including the Kyoto Protocol to curb climate change, the Convention on Biodiversity and the Basel Convention against trade in toxic waste.