Juergen Daum’s News Service about New Economy Management Best Practice
©2000 Juergen Daum. All rights reserved.
UN
Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, has called upon the international business
community to enact nine principles in the areas of human rights, labor
standards, and the environement. This week representatives of 50 companies
joining the UN “Global Compact” initiative have met with Mr. Annan and
representatives of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in New York to discuss
future principles of the global economy. Among this 50 companies are
DaimlerChrysler, Deutsche Bank, Shell, ABB, Ericsson, BP Amoco and Nike, as
well as Dupont, Crédit Suisse First Boston and UBS. These corporations this
week signed a "global compact" that commits them to support free
trade unions, abolish child labour and protect the environment. Mr. Annan seems
to rely now more and more on the power of international global business
organizations to pursue his goals of new global economic principles as member
states of the United Nations seem to be more and more reluctant to support such
new initiatives. His argumentation in front of the business community is, that
globalisation could face a backlash because global rules for protecting
corporate interests had become far more robust than those for safeguarding
social standards. If those issues were forced into the WTO, he warned, they
could become a pretext for protectionist policies that would hurt developing
countries' interests. Especially global corporations have to get used now to
their new role as global citizens taking care of human rights, labour
conditions and environmental standards in order to protect their reputation and
their basis to continue to do successfully business in a free market
environment.
… more (Global labour standards
pledge)
… link to the UN’s Global Compact
home page
©2000
Juergen Daum. All rights reserved.
Copyright, Trademarks
and Disclaimer