Instead, corporate lobby within the UN has led to the implementation of false solutions that serve business interests, while further concentrating the control of corporations over land, resources and the lives of people.

This questioning by Friends of the Earth International of the role of big corporations within the UN, and the leniency within the multilateral framework is shared by other organizations, in the concluding sentence of a joint civil society declaration “No more corporate control or cooptation of the United Nations”, which the environmental groups promoted last month together with other nine organizations in tens of countries including, La Via Campesina, the Third World Network, the Transnational Institute and the Council of Canadians. The declaration was circulated on April 19 and it is now signed by 250 civil society organizations from all over the world.

The press release of Friends of the Earth International reads: “UN institutions and initiatives such as the Global Compact provide far too much room for influence by private corporations”. However , the environmental federation, which has member groups in nearly 80 countries, has already warned several times about corporate capture in UN negotiations, such as the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UN Convention on Climate Change.

According to is official website, the Global Compact is a strategic policy initiative for businesses that are committed to aligning their operations and strategies with ten universally accepted principles in the areas of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption.

Friends of the Earth says in its press release that “While the Global Compact claims that businesses that have signed ’adhere to internationally accepted standards’, in reality many of them consistently fail to comply. That is because, contrary to what the Global Compact says, there is no credible accountability mechanism. The Global Compact only expels companies if they don’t report on human rights violations, not for perpetrating these violations as such”.

The UN Global Compact office responded to the civil society declaration against corporate control and cooptation saying that they have always been careful to make clear that ’the UN and the business community do not share the same core objectives; merely, that in some key areas, business, civil society, the UN, and governments have common areas of interest’.

However, the initiators of the declaration affirm the Global Compact initiative “turns a blind eye to corporate malpractices, and facilitates corporate cooptation of UN processes and outcomes”.

According to Paul de Clerck, Corporates Campaign Coordinator with Friends of the Earth International, “The Global Compact response completely ignores the core of the message, which is that they give far too much influence to the private sector and have forgotten that it is the UN’s role to protect people and nature against corporate crimes.
As a result, the UN is increasingly promoting false solutions that do not serve the public interest but mainly help companies to increase their profits”.

Meanwhile, at the beginning of May, the NGO Major Group at the UN Rio+20 talks in New York, has warned governments and UN organizations alike precisely against the danger of corporate capture.
In a statement dated May 1, the group claimed that civil society remains deeply uncomfortable with the green economy concept, that is being used forgreenwashing the old discredited model of unsustainable development”.

Photo: http://www.tni.org