Back to Table of Contents

Jacked in Jo'Burg: Nuzzling CEOs at the World Summit on Sustainable Development

By Matt Hourihan

The World Summit on Sustainable Development, held in Johannesburg, South Africa, from August 26 to September 4, was one of the largest gatherings of globally influential players in history. World leaders from over one hundred nations attended, in addition to delegations from some seventy other countries and several thousand officially recognized civil participants. Outside of the official sphere, there was an outpouring of popular interest, support, and dissent, with somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 activists staging a protest in the streets of Johannesburg.

The goal of the summit, which was organized by the United Nations, was multi-pronged. With ideals of global community and progress, summit delegates hoped to address environmental problems such as climate change and biodiversity, as well as social problems such as soaring global poverty and the African HIV epidemic. The potential for positive results was enormous.

The lack of positive results was glaring. As demonstrations raged outside, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Under-Secretary General Nitin Desai and other leaders of the UN pushed a pro-corporate agenda, enabling the dominance of global business institutions—the same institutions that led to the global decline.

The original World Summit, held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, was greeted with energetic enthusiasm. From that conference came Agenda 21, an exhaustive action plan aimed at achieving sustainable development. As Raymond Ker writes in Z Magazine, this watershed moment was marked by the realization of the principle of “Common But Differentiated Responsibilities,” in which the economically and industrially advanced nations of the world accept the lion’s share of fixing the world’s ecological problems.

Since then, however, the hopes of the global community have taken a nose dive, as living conditions continued to deteriorate throughout the ‘90s and into the new millennium. Those same industrial powers that accepted responsibility for the consequences of their actions in 1992 steadily withdrew their required financial contributions to Agenda 21 programs in billions of dollars, grinding them to a halt.

At the same time, the powers of multinational corporations expanded, with the triumvirate of the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and the World Bank leading the way. Particularly disastrous were their policies of structural adjustment, which ravaged a number of Third World countries environmentally and socially. The ability to break down barriers set up by the proponents of fair trade was no less crucial. Deregulation, for many, has become a word permanently associated with global decline and imbalance.

This was the source of frustration at the Johannesburg summit, particularly because those who would be the sharpest critics of the current global system readily supported its components’ wishes. The UN was in perfect position to achieve meaningful results, and did not deliver. This is all the more frustrating because of the apparent sentiment of UN leadership. Kofi Annan and Nitin Desai will readily admit the flaws in the implementation of Rio’s Agenda 21, as well as the deteriorating states of living conditions in poor countries around the world. Sheldon Rampton of PR Watch quotes Desai as saying that the Johannesburg summit “must reflect a sense of urgency, for the time available for us to change course is getting shorter.”

Leading the lobbying effort in Johannesburg from the business community was Business Action for Sustainable Development (BASD), an umbrella organization encompassing most global business interests. In the months following up to the World Summit, the BASD attempted to highlight various positive instances of corporate behavior while downplaying the ways that multinationals have damaged the global community. This included the Virtual Exhibition, launched hand-in-hand with the UN’s Development Program, which focuses on sustainable development initiatives.

In addition, Nitin Desai did his best to gain support for the business-friendly approach espoused in Johannesburg before the World Economic Forum and the International Chamber of Commerce. Many of his statements rang with empty rhetoric in the ears of various non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and watch groups, whose assessments were much less bright.

The main cause for concern at Johannesburg was the corporate-governmental agreements, known colloquially as Type II agreements. These agreements are instances of business interests and national governments working hand-in-hand. The downside is that governments are often more than willing to compromise precautions in favor of business’ promises of a booming economy. These types of agreements over the years have led to rollbacks in international regulations, including the Kyoto Protocol. These rollbacks are a direct cause of the current state of global affairs.

The United States has played an active role in these affairs as well. George W. Bush didn’t attend the Johannesburg summit, but ordered the American delegation to push for a rollback of Rio’s important “Common But Differentiated Responsibilities” doctrine. By working with the IMF and WTO at Johannesburg, the US, Canada, and various European powers created an all-powerful lobby effort that effectively diverted the World Summit from its intended course.

By supporting these agreements, as they did with enthusiasm in Johannesburg, UN leadership effectively keeps power in the hands of those who have abused it over the last decade. It is an obvious, widely acknowledged fact that transnational corporations operate first and foremost for profit, and most do not agree that a thriving global community is in the best interest of profit. Where there have been steps made by independent businesses towards corporate responsibility for sustainable development, the results have been immediate and gratifying. But these programs are few and far-between. Unless the UN reverses its field and begins to roll back the power of the current international structures, sustainable development will be a pipe dream.

Matt Hourihan is a senior journalism major. Email him at Hourihan50@hotmail.com.