by Kofi A. Annan
In the two years since I became Secretary-General of the United Nations, our relationship with the private sector has taken great strides forward. We have shown through cooperative ventures - both at the policy level and on the ground - that the goals of the UN and those of the world business community can be mutually supportive.
Now, I want to challenge the leaders of that community to go a step farther.
I am asking them to join me in a global compact of shared values and principles, which can give a human face to the global market.
Globalization is a fact of life.
But I fear we may have underestimated its fragility. The spread of markets far outpaces the ability of societies and their political systems to adjust to them, let alone to guide the course they take. And history teaches us that such an imbalance between the economic, social and political realms can never be long sustained.
The industrialized countries learned that lesson in their bitter and costly encounter with the Great Depression. To restore social harmony and political stability, they adopted social safety nets and other measures, designed to limit economic volatility and compensate the victims of market failures.
That consensus made possible successive moves towards liberalization, which in turn brought about the long postwar expansion.
What we need today is a similar compact on the global scale, to underpin the new global economy. If we succeed in that, we could usher in an age of global prosperity, comparable to that enjoyed by industrialized countries in the decades after World War Two.
With that in mind, I am asking corporate leaders to embrace, support and enact a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labor standards, and environmental practices.
Why those three? First, they are all areas where the private sector can make a real difference.
Secondly, they are areas in which universal values have already been defined by international agreements, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Labor Organization�s Declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work, and the Rio Declaration of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development.
Thirdly, there is enormous pressure from groups interested in preserving standards in these three areas to load the trade regime and investment agreements with restrictions.
Their concerns are legitimate, but restrictions on trade and investment are not the right means to use. Instead, we must clearly show we are upholding our proclaimed standards by other means. I fear that if we fail to do so the open global economy - and especially the multilateral trading regime, which is one of the great achievements of the last 50 years - may be threatened.
How can we promote these standards? Essentially in two ways.
One is through the public policy arena.
Business can use its influence to help states develop the necessary political will. And it can encourage states to give the multilateral institutions the resources and authority they need to do their job.
The United Nations as a whole promotes peace and development, which are prerequisites for meeting social and environmental goals alike.
The International Labour Organization, the United Nations High Commissioner for
Human Rights and the United Nations Environmental Programme strive to improve labour conditions, human rights and environmental quality. We hope in future to count business as ever closer allies in these endeavours.
The second way they can promote global values is by taking action in their own sphere.
Many of them are big investors, employers and producers in dozens of countries across the world.
That power brings with it great opportunities - and great responsibilities.
They can uphold human rights and decent labor and environmental standards directly, by their own conduct of their own business.
Indeed, they can use these universal values, which people all over the world will recognize as their own, as the cement binding together their global corporations.
They can start by making sure that in their own corporate practices they uphold and respect human rights, and are not themselves complicit in human rights abuses.
Firms do not need to wait until every country has introduced laws protecting freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining before making sure that their own employees, and those of their subcontractors, enjoy those rights.
The least they can do is to make sure they themselves are not employing under-age children or forced labor, either directly or indirectly, and that, in their hiring and firing policies, they do not discriminate on grounds of race, creed, gender or ethnic origin.
They can also support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges, and undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility.
And they can encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.
The relevant UN agencies - the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the ILO, the UN Environment Programme - all stand ready to assist them, if they need help, in incorporating these agreed values and principles into their mission statements and corporate practices. And we are ready to facilitate a dialogue between them and other social groups, to help find viable solutions to the genuine concerns those groups have raised.
Firms may find it useful to interact with us through our newly created website, www.un.org/partners - a �one-stop shop� for corporations interested in the UN.
More important, perhaps, is what we can do in the political arena, to help make the case for and maintain an environment which favours trade and open markets.
What I am proposing is a genuine compact, because neither side of it can succeed without the other.
Without the private sector�s active commitment and support, there is a danger that universal values will remain little more than fine words - documents whose anniversaries we can celebrate and make speeches about, but with limited impact on the lives of ordinary people.
And unless those values are really seen to be taking hold, I fear we may find it increasingly difficult to make a persuasive case for the open global market.
Let us remember that global markets and the multilateral trading system we have today did not come about by accident.
They are the result of enlightened policy choices made by governments since 1945.
If we want to maintain them in the new century, all of us - governments, corporations, pressure groups, international organizations - have to make the right choices now.
The author is Secretary-General of the United Nations. This article is based on a speech which he made to the World Economic Forum in Davos on Sunday
1/29/99 No.2 Part 3
CAN RUSSIA�S DEMOCRATS UNITE POLITICALLY? By Vladimir Mironov Vladimir Alekseevich Mironov is a senior fellow of the Institute of International Economic and Political Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.
During the relatively short history of the sovereign Russian Federation the democratic forces have already managed to become a byword for disunity. Many democratic politicians see this disunity as the main reason for their failure at the ballot box. Because of discord among the democrats, they believe, the federal and regional legislatures are dominated by communist and nationalist deputies, the task of creating legislation which meets the requirements of a modernizing Russia is being held up, and the powers of the president and the government to reform the country�s political and economic system are being curtailed. During election campaigns, most democratic leaders are obsessed with overcoming the disagreements and achieving unity. In the heat of the political struggle, however, the reasons for the democrats� disunity and their inability to unite get blurred.
RUSSIAN SOCIETY ON THE EVE OF THE 21ST CENTURY First, Russian society, which is in transition, is, to a great extent, sui generis. Life�s familiar landmarks have disappeared; traditions which existed are no longer required. As a result, most of the population is in a permanent state of stress in trying to deal with daily problems which used to resolve themselves automatically by tradition and habit. At the same time, a significant portion of the Russian population concentrate most of its attention on physical survival. Political assessments are generally based on emotion and appeal not to knowledge, but to faith.
At the same time, certain democratic principles have taken root in Russian society�principles which Russians will not want to relinquish. The majority of the population�despite the economic hardships and their clear understanding that the ongoing crisis will be long and drawn out�continues to support the economic reforms, the development of market relations, and a mixed economy in which state control of the primary industries is combined with private ownership. When they say they are in favor of increasing the role of the state in the economy, most Russians see no point in banning the free circulation of foreign currency in the country or in nationalizing the commercial banks. Political scientists� warnings of future catastrophes, the threat of civil war and the likelihood of dictatorship run up against the firm resolve of Russian citizens to hold onto the democratic rights and freedoms which were won in the late 1980s and early 1990s. More than 71 percent of poll respondents do not support the idea of even a temporary ban on the activities of political parties, slightly more than 88 percent stand up for freedom of speech and reject the closure of newspapers which criticize the authorities, and only 20 percent support even the possibility of postponing any elections for any period.
Third, 50 percent of the Russian population are firm in their political allegiances, while the other 50 percent either do not like any of the current political parties or are not planning to take part in the elections. The politically active half is divided into four large sectors�communists and their allies, liberal conservatives, social democrats, and nationalists. Yet the degree of mobility and loyalty among party supporters varies. Only the communist electorate will dutifully go out and vote for their candidates come rain or shine. The core supporters of the liberals, social democrats and nationalists are surrounded by a large periphery of floating voters with poorly defined political views. Within one sector, votes may move from one organization to another, but between sectors there is little exchange. The only exception to this, perhaps, are those who support radical market reforms. Their numbers have fallen more than fivefold in the last few years. They now represent just over than 5 percent of the population, while the ranks of the nationalists and centrists have swelled.
But while electoral preferences are manifested in familiar socioeconomic cliches, most Russians rarely think in ideological categories. They define their attitude either by more general symbols and values or by their preferences for particular political leaders or parties. There are many reasons for this. Most Russians, tired of the tribulations of the last decade, have become nostalgic and anxious, and try to avoid danger and unpleasantness. People are afraid of poverty, war and crime, and vote for those who promise to protect them from these woes. In addition, the collapse of life�s familiar landmarks, a result of the ideological battle in the late 1980s and early 1990s, created what is termed a ragged consciousness, wary of abstract categories.
RUSSIAN POLITICAL PARTIES AND SOCIETY One feature of the Russian political scene is that within the four large political sectors there are hundreds of political parties and movements. The fragmentation of Russia�s political forces, including the democratic forces, is due, first, to the immaturity of political relations, and to the desire of various political forces to secure a legal foothold from which to fight for their programs. Second, it is due to the uncritical self-appraisal and ambition of most leaders. Third, it is due to romanticism left over from the days of perestroika or to the hope of improving one�s own material position. Fourth, there is the belief, entrenched in society and in some circles of the political and administrative elite, in the all-defining power of politics. Many of those involved in politics are convinced that the main obstacle to successfully implementing economic reforms�which are understood differently by different politicians and ordinary citizens�is the existing political system.
(To be continued)