*{Global Policy Forum - UN Reform: Representing Business at the UN? 
Representing Business at the UN?
By James A. Paul
Executive Director, Global Policy Forum
October, 1996}

I want to look further at the various proposals that the UN would be somehow 
"more effective" if business had an official seat at the table. There are many 
such ideas, which are being very actively promoted by the Secretary General, 
Maurice Strong, General Assembly President Razali and many others. I will 
speak about some of those other ideas in a later paper, but first I want to 
address the idea that an ILO-model, based on tripartite representation 
(governments, business, NGOs) would be a positive step.

The ILO, we should recall, was set up a very long time ago -- before the time 
of the League of Nations, in fact. Because it dealt with workplace issues and 
took the emerging field of "collective bargaining" between employers and 
employees (as represented by trade unions) as its model, it was given its 
unique tripartite shape. In 1997, however, the ILO is out of favor among the 
decision-makers in many capitals and there is a concerted effort in the US 
Congress to eliminate it. This is not, then, a "model" that attracts a lot of 
enthusiasm. 

We should ask why this is so, given that business has a major place at the 
table in the ILO. The answer, I think, is that labor has an equal place at the 
table. As such, the ILO is suspected by the high priests of neoliberalism of 
being too friendly to workers and their interests. In other words, the ILO 
stands accused of too often addressing the needs of the vast majority of 
humanity that are employees, in a way that is seen to harm the interests of 
the infinitesimal minority who have an ownership stake in major transnational 
corporations. "Worrying about workers is out of fashion these days," commented 
the Economist magazine in a piece about the ILO not long ago.
 
Now I don't quite see how one can abstract the ILO "model" and substitute NGOs 
for workers, ending up with a tripartite structure: 
government-businesses-NGOs. It doesn't make sense. The ILO model made sense 
because businesses tend to be relatively homogeneous in the way they represent 
their interests vis a vis labor (and vice versa). Furthermore, the issues at 
stake were defined in a limiting way as purely "workplace" issues (wages, 
hours, working conditions.
 
The business-NGO pairing has none of the same consistency or logic. The fact 
that NGOs include business associations shows that we would be joining 
together two entirely different categories -- "apples and oranges" as the 
logicians like to say.
 
We should ask: why business and not other interests represented by NGOs -- 
like women, or farmers, or religious organizations, or indigenous people, or 
other candidates for "major group" status like universities, the media, 
research institutes, the elderly, and so on. 

Most advocates duck the question "why business?" They tend to insist that 
business is very important in society, and that without a business presence 
"at the table" the discussion is disconnected from the "real world." Advocates 
like Secretary-General Annan and President Razali also see the question in 
terms of the United Nations as an institution. They are concerned that without 
a strong business voice at the UN, business will marginalize the UN or even 
destroy it. Some NGO advocates have also argued that business representation 
will free governments from pressure to represent business interests in their 
policy. 

These three lines of argument all have serious flaws. First, it may be even 
more valid to say that women are very important and that without their 
interests represented "at the table" the discussion may stray from the real 
world. Yet no one is proposing special representation at the UN for women. If 
anything, women's rights are being downgraded. 

Second, those who say that the UN must incorporate business or else be 
destroyed are recognizing a harsh reality, but they may be drawing the wrong 
conclusion from it. If, in fact, business is prepared to destroy (or 
marginalize) all institutions that do not pay obeisance to the market and to 
private profit-making, no matter what the impact on the environment or on the 
well-being of the people of the globe, then we have a very big problem that 
will not be solved simply by capitulation to the high priests of 
neoliberalism. 

Third, those who think that a business presence will result in governments 
being freed to represent the interests of the poor, the oppressed and those 
whose rights have been violated may be suffering from a serious case of 
wishful thinking. By what precedents can we expect this shift? Would a 
business presence actually shift the balance at the UN in the direction we 
want? 

Finally, we must return to the issue of democracy. The UN and other 
institutions of global governance can only really succeed if they become more 
democratic and more truly accountable. Would the addition of "representatives" 
of business increase democracy at the UN? The answer quite clearly is no. 
Businification is not the road to democracy. That's why national parliaments 
don't have business "representatives" either. 

It's time for the NGO community to think carefully and discuss vigorously the 
proposals that are being put forward about a more democratic and accountable 
and representative UN. Representation is very, very complex at this moment in 
history. National parliaments are not working very well in spite of more than 
a century of experience and legitimacy and a widely-agreed representational 
formula (one-adult citizen-one-vote). I do not have any simple formulas for 
how to make global decision-making more democratic, just some hunches. My 
first hunch is that NGOs have a lot to offer and that our efforts to enlarge 
NGO rights will lead in the right direction. My second hunch is that bringing 
business to the table will make matters much, much worse.