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 Christopher Brauchli ~ STWR Member E=mc2
Albert Einstein So marvelous are the benefits that it almost makes a human being giddy. Congress passed an energy bill before its members hurried home to their well-earned rest. (By September 3, when they return, they will have vacationed for 90 days and worked for 153 days. And when a piece of legislation becomes law that provides each of us as many benefits as the Energy Bill does, all those days of vacation can be forgiven.)
Although the energy bill does lots of wonderful things for human beings, corporations were not overlooked. The difference between how humans are treated and how corporations are treated is that corporations get bigger and longer lasting benefits than do individuals. The final cost of the bill will be between $12.3 billion and $15 billion. Eight hundred million will go to those of us who are homeowners and another $874 million to those who buy alternate fuel vehicles over the next decade.
It is impossible to describe all the benefits corporations get in a space as short as this. Here are a few: A 30% business tax credit for the purchase of fuel cell power plants and a 10% credit for the purchase of stationary microturbine power plants; a 15 year write off for natural gas distribution lines (down from the former 20); ability to expense 50% of the cost of refinery equipment through 2012; significant financial aid for companies building nuclear power plants; (Taxpayers will, therefore, not only help pay for the new plants but pay again when they get their electric bills from those plants. ) The list of benefits for large corporations goes on and on and the reader would grow weary in a column such as this were I to continue the description. The important thing is that many of the benefits are not limited in size or duration. And that is what distinguishes them from the benefits conferred upon those of us not lucky enough to be corporations.
The best news for non-corporations is that we get things called “life time credits.” The worst thing is they are tiny and assume we’ll all be dead before 2008. The most significant benefit for the human being who is also a homeowner is a 30% tax credit for installing qualifying residential solar water heating, photovoltaic equipment and fuel cell property. Not believing in frivolity congress did not make the credit available for systems used to heat swimming pools and hot tubs. The maximum credit is $2000, which will probably not buy the best system on the market. The property must be placed in service after 2005 and before 2008. Otherwise the credit is lost. Other benefits for homeowners are less generous.
A taxpayer who makes qualifying energy saving improvements to an existing home may claim a lifetime credit of up to $500 for those improvements. Only $200 of that credit, however, may be applied to the cost of replacing windows. That means that Congress is willing to help pay for most of the cost of replacing all the windows in a house that only has one window. Since it’s a lifetime credit, after replacing the window, the taxpayer still has a $300 lifetime credit that can be applied to other useful energy savings programs around the house such as the installation of an advanced main air-circulating fan. That would generate a credit of $50. Qualified natural gas, propane, or oil furnaces or hot water boilers are entitled to a $150 credit.
The size of the benefits bestowed on human beings is not the only feature that distinguishes what human beings get from what corporations get. Whereas many of the benefits bestowed upon large corporations have no identifiable ending period, most of human beings’ lifetime credits must be used after 2005 and before 2008. Assuming congress does not intend for us to all die before 2008, the use of the word “lifetime” joins other words in the Washington vernacular that make no sense. Because of the time constraints imposed by the law, a taxpayer who plans on replacing a window at other taxpayers’ expense should wait until January 1 of next year to accomplish that and should make sure the window is placed in service by New Year’s Eve, 2007.
There is one area in which congress has deigned to give generous benefits to individuals. It has continued benefits bestowed on those buying alternate fuel vehicles including hybrids, electric cars and cars using alternative fuels. Those all last beyond 2007 but have varying cut off dates and amounts.
After reading this, some may wonder why most of the goodies flow to corporations. Here’s the answer. Corporations contribute more money to members of Congress than do individuals. It is only fair that they get greater rewards from the objects of their bounty. Life is fair. They do.
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Dr Michael Dorsey Member of Dartmouth College's Faculty of Science.
Michael's work covers a wide variety of international and environmental policy concerns. Are corporations hog-tying conservation groups in CAFTA fight? By: L. Grandia, J. Cabrera, M. K. Dorsey, L. Nader, M. R. Rosa, C. Ruiz, and J. C. Swanhuyser A year ago, President Bush signed the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Since then, the controversial plan has inspired protests across the U.S. and in Central America. And while past trade agreements have been ratified by Congress in less than two months, the Bush administration has delayed the vote on CAFTA multiple times, unable to rally the support needed for it to pass.
The latest vote is scheduled for this month, but CAFTA's passage is by no means inevitable. Many Democrats and some Republicans, having learned from the fallout of NAFTA -- for example, the loss of hundreds of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs -- are expected to vote against it. They're taking this stand because the agreement is weak on both labor and environmental standards, and because they are beginning to realize such treaties promote not free trade, but corporate trade.
The environmental movement has also learned from NAFTA. An impressive coalition of professional and grassroots organizations is fighting CAFTA on the basis that it "would allow foreign investors to challenge hard-won environmental laws and regulations, and fails to include adequate measures to ensure environmental improvement throughout Central America and the United States." Members include Friends of the Earth, Earthjustice, Sierra Club, League of Conservation Voters, Natural Resources Defense Council, and U.S. Public Interest Research Group, among others.
Missing from this fight is an elite subset of the movement: the international biodiversity conservation organizations. Not one of the four major groups in this field -- Conservation International, the World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and the Wildlife Conservation Society -- has demonstrated the courage to oppose CAFTA, despite ample opportunity over the past year.
When asked about his organization's position on CAFTA at a recent talk at the University of California-Berkeley, Kent Redford of WCS replied that his organization "does not engage in policy work." (The speech, offering an indication of priorities, was titled, "Has Poverty Alleviation Abducted Conservation?") Conservation International's vice president for conservation and government said, "We don't have a position." A World Wildlife Fund representative wrote, "WWF has not been tracing CAFTA either in Central America or in our U.S. office. As a result, we don't have a position on CAFTA ..." Nor has The Nature Conservancy stated a position.
Their silence is inexcusable. Consider the immediate threats CAFTA poses in a region that, while accounting for less than 1 percent of the world's land mass, is estimated to hold 8 to 10 percent of the planet's species: - The treaty would allow international agribusiness to dump subsidized food commodities, most notably corn, at below-market prices in Central America. When this happened in Mexico under NAFTA, more than 1.5 million Mexican farmers lost their livelihoods. CAFTA may hasten agricultural price collapses, which would ultimately force small farmers off their land and -- as has happened in Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve -- into protected areas in search of subsistence. CAFTA would effectively create a new underclass of displaced people: free-trade refugees.
- It would enable corporations to sue governments over future lost profits if local environmental laws inhibit their activities. (This expands provisions in NAFTA that corporations have taken full advantage of; in perhaps the most famous, and still pending, case, Vancouver-based Methanex sued the U.S. government for $970 million over a California law that had banned the gasoline additive MTBE, a suspected carcinogen.) CAFTA would benefit companies like Harken Energy, which has long wanted to drill offshore in Costa Rica's protected Talamanca region, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. If CAFTA passes, Harken (on whose board George W. Bush formerly served) plans to sue the government of Costa Rica for $58 billion for the right to drill there. By comparison, the entire GDP of Costa Rica is $38 billion.
- Most Central American countries currently prohibit the patenting of nature. But CAFTA would force them to modify their intellectual-property laws to enable corporate bio-prospecting (what many call bio-piracy), effectively allowing corporations to steal traditional indigenous knowledge. CAFTA would also facilitate the privatization of critical services like water, health, education, and telecommunications.
- Although CAFTA does contain an "environmental" chapter, it merely makes recommendations like the "promotion" of clean production technologies. Corporate lobbyists hail CAFTA's voluntary mechanisms as the "most advanced ... ever included in a trade agreement." But as one Salvadoran environmental activist put it, "They have added a bit of green sweetener to a truly toxic stew."
In the face of these outrageous threats, how to explain the silence of these four groups, which are so well-endowed in budgets and policy staff?
We might look to an important paradigm shift. In the heady days after the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, all of the major biodiversity groups embraced the concept of sustainable development. But over the past few years, the conservation pendulum has been swinging back to a stricter preservationist ideology. Little by little, the international conservation organizations have shifted to market-based approaches to conservation.
A decade after Rio, at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development, these groups championed public-private partnerships. They also lauded the new reign of "ecosystem services," whereby any aspect of the environment can be had, for a price. It's not that the big organizations don't "do" policy; rather, they do only a certain kind of free-market policy work.
To facilitate the uptake of this free-market approach, international conservation groups have opened their doors to transnational corporate leaders. Today, three-quarters of Conservation International's board and half of the slots on The Nature Conservancy's board are given to representatives of major corporations -- including Wal-Mart and Gap, Inc., two companies actively lobbying in support of CAFTA. Are these corporate dollars a Faustian bargain for the international environmental movement? Are they subtly distracting these large conservation organizations from seeing the links between political economy and environmental degradation?
In these final critical weeks of debate, we need the lobbying support of the international conservationists working in Central America. Together, the four major groups control well over half of conservation dollars available worldwide, and wield enormous influence. Their partnerships with in-country organizations make them perfectly suited to lobby both on the ground and in Washington, D.C. They could give detailed testimony about CAFTA's impact on the regional environment. They could also lend support to the courageous Central Americans who have already spoken out vociferously against CAFTA.
Conservation International, World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and Wildlife Conservation Society: it's time. We challenge you, with all your resources and your clout, to see beyond corporate interests. Join the many others in the environmental community who oppose this dangerous trade agreement.
*Liza Grandia is a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley and a senior fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program; Jorge Cabrera is Director of Grupo Kukulkan in Guatemala; Michael K. Dorsey, in on the faculty at Dartmouth College and an ex-Director of the Sierra Club; Laura Nader is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley; Magalà Rey Rosa is a columnist at La Prensa Libre in Guatemala; Carmelo Ruiz is a journalist and Director of the Puerto Rican Project on Biosafety; and Jesse Colorado Swanhuyser is Director of the California Coalition for Fair Trade and Human Rights. |
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Dr. Charles Mercieca ~ STWR Member
President of International Association of Educators for World Peace NGO,
United Nations (ECOSOC), UNDPI, UNICEF, UNCED & UNESCO
Professor Emeritus of Alabama A&M University
Ten Deadly Enemies of Humanity in America
Every dictionary describes enemy as “one hostile to another; one who hates another; a foe; an adversary; an antagonist; a hostile force, army, fleet, or the like.” The enemy’s goal is to destroy anything that comes in the enemy’s way that would prevent such an enemy from the achievement of set goals and purposes. Hence, any person or group that performs actions that are detrimental to our environment, to our very own life may be viewed as our deadly enemy.
Destructive Intent of American Corporations
Regardless as to whether or not Americans as a whole perceive it, we may single out the ten deadly enemies of the American people and of all people of all nations as a matter of fact. These are ten American largest corporations whose product is virtually lethal. They put in danger not only the people who work for such industries but also those who are directly or indirectly affected by their deadly products. They are all linked to wars and they all view peace as their outright enemy since peace would eventually render their product obsolete.
This means, they would not cease embracing their Satanic God, known as the never-ending-accumulation of wealth and money. These top deadly enemies make billions of dollars annually on the premise that the end justifies the means. To this end, they employ psychologists to study the mood of the people and to come with advertisement proposals so as to present their product deceitfully to the people. They want the American people either to accept it by all means or, at least, to remain indifferent about it. There is only one thing they do not want absolutely, namely, to see people openly critical against their deadly product.
In this presentation, we are not going into details on the nature of the deadly product of such ten big corporations. We are simply going to pinpoint them and bring them into the open for everyone to see and comprehend. We hope that those who are interested in the preservation of our environment and life would investigate on their own the extent of irreversible damage these monsters of our earthly society are procuring.
We are going to enlist them briefly and to explain what they do with a brief comment on how their product leads to the destruction of our environment and of our life. Needless to say, the fact that they may produce good product should not be a justification of their continued existence the way they are.
1. Lockheed Martin Corporation, better known by many as Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, is located in Forth Worth, Texas. This company chose to specialize in the manufacture of military aircrafts whose job is to devastate entire nations mercilessly in the name of national security, peace and world stability! It produces F-16 Fighting Falcon, the versatile air-lifter C-130J Super Hercules, the stealth fighter F-117 Nighthawk, and the next generation fighter F/A 22 Raptor. All these are meant to be used not by civilians for positive and constructive purposes, but by the military for negative and destructive activities.
This lethal company has been awarded contracts to build the multi-service and multi-mission F-35 Joint Strike Fighter! Lockheed Martin sells its products to any nation that gives the right price under the pretext that such nations have a right for self-defense! Like Retired US Admiral Gene La Rocque remarked in his videotapes: “Military product is manufactured primarily not for the defense of the USA or of any other country but merely for profit.”
2. Boeing Company is viewed as the largest aerospace company in the world. It is commissioned to make commercial jets that it sells to any nation that wishes to purchase such a product. Although Boeing tries to stress the word “commercial” in its advertisements, it is also in the business of making military aircraft and missile in addition to phantom works. It tries to justify its product as an effective means for the United States to defend itself against the enemy. Here we need to ask: Who is the enemy? At one time the answer was: The Soviet Union. However, after the Soviet collapse they came out with another enemy known as the rogue states, which consist of a group of some five to six banana republics where people are starving and are having surmountable problems.
Like every other big industry, Boeing is primarily concerned with profit. To this end, it would not object to provide every single nation on earth with its product as long as involved nations would pay the right price. Confronted with such a reality, the concept of nationalism and patriotism for Americans becomes literally meaningless. And to distract the American people from the industry’s malicious intent, the stress on the concept of patriotism emerged to be popular. This explains why nowadays you see some of the top executives in these deadly corporations, along with top US government officials, wearing an American flag pin on their chest.
3. Northrop Grumman Corporation works under the guise of national security, civil and industrial needs by providing advanced information technology systems whose ultimate goal is to make American wars more devastating as to kill the maximum amount of people possible with the least effort. Among other devices, it has developed Kinetic Energy Interceptors Missile Defense Battle Management Capabilities. This company has made the waging of wars as its source of income. Behind the scenes it makes sure that wars are constantly taking place, even if it had to provide weaponry systems to potential enemies and then instigate them to use them via third parties. This would be needed to give them the excuse to start a devastating war where everyone, including Americans, would be a loser and no one a winner.
We need to keep in mind that in the United States both individuals and corporations have the freedom to make money the way they want. This policy has enabled the manufacturers of all kinds of weapons to develop into lucrative businesses no matter how much their product would prove to be detrimental to innocent people. After all, as we learned from the Iraqi war, the massacre of innocent Iraqis in tens of thousands has been referred by American politicians who support fully the weapons industry not as victims but merely as collateral damage, like people were a piece of discarded furniture.
4. General Dynamics Corporation is one of the major military contractors. Recently it was awarded $900 million contract for the production of 2.75 inch rockets from the US Army Aviation and Missile Command, Redstone Arsenal, Alabama. This corporation, like other similar ones, is in the business of air and water pollution and of hastening the road to Armageddon. Under the guise of peace, General Dynamics continues to fleece the US government of tens of millions of dollars, money that would have been used constructively to provide homes for the homeless, give our children adequate health care and education, and enable researchers to find remedies to such deadly maladies as cancer, heart disease, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy, among others.
General dynamics is headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia and it employs over 70,000 people worldwide. In 2004 it had revenue of over $19 billion dollars. Its lethal product is used for expeditionary combat systems, armaments and munitions as well as shipbuilding and marine systems among. This corporation is responsible for rockets that can be fired from a variety of rotary and fixed platforms that include, among others, US Army apache and US Marine Corps Cobra attack helicopters. One of the best sources to see what this corporation, along with other deadly ones mentioned in this presentation, is doing would be the internet.
5. Raytheon Company specializes in high technology with operations in commercial and defense electronics, engineering, construction, aviation, and major appliances. This company has embarked on advertisements that show the company’s concern for the “needs of the people” starting with giving assistance to families of US military men in Iraq. At the same time, this company supports the Ballistic Missile Defense System. Most of its war products are in testing today. In spite of its effort to establish a good image as being humanitarian and peaceful, Raytheon does nothing positive and constructive for peace in the sense that it works for the prevention of war rather than for the waging of war.
The idea that these deadly enemies in America of our earthly community would work for a genuine peace through the development of a program of international disarmament and arms control not only it does not exist in their agenda, but the very thought of it may be easily dismissed as craziness! This company, like the others enlisted in this presentation, has people trained in talking with top government officials by presenting them with videotapes showing how the development of more sophisticating and devastating weapons would enhance the national security of the United States. Unfortunately, most of the US government officials, mostly Republicans, fall easily into trap and concede to allot more and more money for more and more weapons and wars.
6. United Technologies Corporation claims to be a $37 billion company whose products include heating and cooling fire and security systems along with Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines, Sikorsky helicopters and UTC Power fuel cells, among others. As stated earlier, these deadly corporations are in the business of making money through the production mostly of devastating lethal products. Recently, Sikorsky S-92 helicopter won Korean Presidential competition. This type of helicopter is now sold to South Korea. United Technologies Corporation states that what it manufactures is merely for national defense and security of the United States and of all the other countries that purchase such products.
There is no war machinery whatsoever that is said to be manufactured for purpose of the destruction of the infrastructure of nations and the massacre of numerous innocent people. When this happens we already know what they would say relative to the horrendous crimes that are committed against innocent people in every way. It’s merely collateral damage! The best contribution that this company could do is to get out of the war business, the sooner the better. We need to develop an international program of disarmament and arms control. At the same time, we need to leave the job of international relations and peace in the hands for world-wide humanitarian organizations and out of the hands of the government’s officials.
7. Halliburton Company claims to be one of the world’s largest providers of products and services to the oil and gas industries. No wonder it moved so quickly to take hold of the oil in Iraq shortly after the American invasion and occupation. This company employs 100,000 people in over 120 countries. These people are primarily trained in drilling and formation evaluation, fluid systems, production optimization as well as digital and consulting solutions. Over the past several years, this company made it clear that it wants to be second to none in technological leadership, operational excellence as well as innovative business relationships, and dynamic workforce.
Three of the most dangerous and abusive companies in the USA are the trio corporations consisting of the weapons, oil and construction companies. They seem to work hand in hand. The weapons industry destroys the infrastructure of a nation such as it has been in Iraq, then the oil industry steps in to take charge of the existent oil of such nation and other rich natural resources when available, while the construction company steps in to rebuild what the weapons industry destroyed successfully. Needless to say, these three big corporations seem to work hand in hand like they were a mafia type of organization.
8. General Electric Company seems to be one of the most astute companies in the world when it comes to the advertisement of its product. It focuses on products that are mostly used by the general public, like bulbs and refrigerators. When it comes to the products that are harmful to people, it tends to play it cool and hardly makes any public advertisements. This company has some $500 billion dollars in assets and has business in 47 nations around the world. It has been heavily involved in nuclear weapons emitting toxic wastes that made countless thousands of people have numerous health problems many of whom died prematurely. A videotape report was made to illustrate this reality entitled: Deadly Deception.
This videotape report was produced by a concerned private humanitarian organization known as Corporate Accountability International, and could be contacted at 46 Plympton Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02118. This organization has been very active in protecting the life of ordinary citizens whose air has been dangerously polluted by big corporations that included lately the giant oil corporations of Exxon/Mobil, and Chevron/Texaco. It also got after other big corporations like Coca-Cola, which has been draining all of the pure water they can get hold on, and tobacco giants like Phillip Morris whose structured deceitful advertisements about their lethal product has hooked millions on nicotine most of whom were sent to their grave already. General Electric Company remains a very dangerous company because of its involvement in nuclear weapons.
9. Science Applications International Corporation is the largest employee-owned research and engineering company in the United States. Like the other mentioned big corporations, this corporation is also involved in military ventures. Just recently it signed a contract with the US Air Force to provide system engineering and integration support for the Joint Mission Planning system (JMPS) for a period of 12 years. The contract exceeds $200 million dollars. The ultimate purpose would be to make US military missions, as they are called, more effective. In plain words, the objective would be for the US Air Force to become more devastating in future wars on any regional or global scale.
Some of the work that is performed deals with health care, energy and telecommunication. Needless to say, each of these deadly companies do provide services that could be termed to be positive and beneficial but such services do not seem to be the focus of the company as a whole. Besides, this giant corporation is trying to work hand in had with military vehicles, homeland security as well as anything that goes under the titled of national security, whatever that may mean since such a phrase has been so much misused and abused in the past. Some of its major clients may be enlisted as criminal justice, space ventures, which may include control of weapons in space, and effective transportation in addition to others.
10. Computer Sciences Corporation provides mostly consulting, systems integration and design, and software for industries and for governmental requirements. Although this corporation is also involved with health services, its focus seems to be on aerospace and defense dealing with weapons and military equipment for purpose of waging of endless wars. The US government spent billions of dollars on this industry at the expense of the American people’s health care and education. Such money could have been used to improve Americans’ quality life through the elimination of hunger, the provision of homes for the homeless, and the cure of diseases that are killing Americans unnecessarily.
According to the United Nations report on the children’s state of health in every country, one out of five children in the USA suffers from malnutrition and hunger. As stated by retired top military commanders of the US Center for Defense Information in Washington, DC, these big military corporations are not primarily concerned with the defense of the American nation, nor of any other nation as a matter of fact. Their primary and only concern is profit as stated eaerlier. When the Soviet Union collapsed the United States was given the opportunity to bring about a permanent world peace through the development of an international program of disarmament and arms control. After all, this has been a major goal of the United Nations since its establishment in 1945.
We are submitting a list of names and addresses of main offices of these top ten deadly enemies of humanity in America in the order of billions of dollars that were made out of the manufacture and sales of military ammunitions and weapons of mass destruction during the year 2004.
1. Lockheed Martin Corporation, 6901 Rockledge Drive, Bethesda, Maryland 20917, USA, Phone: 301-897-6000, Fax: 301-897-6704
2. Boeing Company, 100 North Riversides, Chicago, Illinois 60606, USA, Phone: 312-544-2000,
3. Northrop Grumman Corporation, 1840 Century Part East, Los Angeles, California 90067, USA, Phone: 310-553-6262, Fax: 310-553-2076
4. General Dynamics Corporation, 13880 Del Sur Street, San Fernando, California 91340, USA, Phone: 818-897-111, Fax: 818-899-4045
5. Raytheon Company, 870 Winter Street, Waltham, Massachusetts 02451, USA, Phone: 781-522-3000, Fax: 781-522-3001
6. United Technologies Corporation, 275 Westminster Street, Suite 400, Providence, Rhode Island 02903, USA, Phone: 401-521-5700, Fax: 401-521-3332, Fax: 401-521-3332
7. Halliburton Company, 5 Houston Center, 1401 McKinney, Suite 240 C, Houston, Texas 77020, USA, Phone: 710-759-2600, Fax: 710-759-2605
8. General Electric Company, 1717 East Interstate Avenue, Bismarck, North Dakota 58503, USA, Phone: 701-223-0441, Fax: 701-224-5336
9. Science Applications International Corporation, 10260 Campus Point Drive, San Diego, California 92121, USA, Phone: 858-826-6000, Fax: 858-826-6800
10. Computer Sciences Corporation, 2100 East Grand Avenue, El Segundo, California 90245, USA, Phone: 310-615-0011, Fax: 310-322-9769
In conclusion, the American people have the sacrosanct duty to bring these ten deadly enemies of humanity in America under control by refusing to manufacture weapons and deadly military equipment and to insist with such corporations to replace without delay their lethal products with constructive items that would be beneficial to all people without exception.
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Dr Michael Dorsey Member of Dartmouth College's Faculty of Science.
Michaels work covers a wide variety of international and environmental policy concerns.
A Plan for Democratic Control of Corporate Crime In an explicit effort to further the role of transnational corporations in the implementation of sustainable development the planners of the World Summit on Sustainable Development proposed to: "Encourage the private sector, including transnational corporations, private foundations and civil society institutions, to provide financial and technical assistance to developing countries"Â [and] "Create partnerships conducive to investment and technology transfer, development and diffusion, to assist developing countries, as well as countries with economies in transition, in sharing best practices and promoting programmes of assistance, and encourage collaboration between corporations and research institutes to enhance industrial efficiency, agricultural productivity, environmental management and competitiveness" These accolades to firms are made in the face of the grim, growing reality of the extent of corporate concentration of power, malfeasance and criminal activity against individuals and institutions with grave consequences for social welfare, development, human rights, democracy and environmental protection. In the year 2000, for the first time in the history humanity of the 100 largest economies in the world, 51 are now global corporations; only 49 are countries. Further the combined sales of the world's top 200 corporations are far greater than a quarter of the world's economic activity. Indeed, the top 200 corporations' combined sales are bigger than the combined economies of all countries minus the biggest 9; that is they surpass the combined economies of 182 countries. The top 200 firms have almost twice the economic clout of the poorest four-fifths of humanity. In other words the top five firms had more economic power and clout than the poorest 100 nations combined, as Fig. 1 shows.
 Fig. 1
Firms were able to concentrate an enormous amount of power during the 1990s. Fig 2 shows the exponential degree of increase in mergers and acquisitions during the two decades of neo-liberalism and sustainability. This downside of the amazing rise of concentration of corporate power and resources means that we now inhabit a world where a single firm can have a massive effect on environment and development issues and problems, possibly at the expense of the planet.
Fig 2.
According to the environmental lobby Friends of the Earth International (FOEI), just one oil company contributed three times as much carbon dioxide into the air as the current annual emissions from fossil fuels. A FOEI study notes that ExxonMobil has produced 20.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions in its 120 years of existence. This is approximately three times the annual global emissions now and 13 times the annual emissions from the United States. Such contributions mean that the giant ExxonMobil has caused between 4.7 and 5.3% of all man-made carbon dioxide emissions across the globe, since its foundation as the Standard Oil Trust in 1882. This dramatic impact on planetary resources is presumably a function of “legalâ€Â behavior. Yet, illegal firm behavior is perhaps more pernicious and widespread, than previously presumed—but it is hard to say exactly as no single multilateral institution tracks it. Conservative figures from the United States suggest the financial cost of corporate crimes such as monopoly-pricing, bribery, illegal mergers, tax evasion and fraudulent advertising is 10 to 100 times the financial loss caused by robbery, burglary, larceny and auto-theft combined. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) estimates, for example, that burglary and robbery (i.e., “street crimesâ€Â) costs the US $3.8 billion a year; whereas healthcare fraud alone costs between $200 billion to $400 billion a year. In 2000, only in the US, the 100 corporate criminals fell into 14 categories of crime: Environmental (38), antitrust (20), fraud (13), campaign finance (7), food and drug (6), financial crimes (4), false statements (3), illegal exports (3), illegal boycott (1), worker death (1), bribery (1), obstruction of justice (1) public corruption (1), and tax evasion (1). (It is notable that “white collar crimes do not even appear in US government aggregate crime statistics.) The upside, if there is one, to the extent and breadth of the concentration of corporate power and resources as well as the continuing crime is that it might be easier to check, monitor and control, than previously thought. If we are to move beyond sustainability in terms of controlling firms, less to zero attention needs to be paid to corporate voluntarism or corporate social responsibility. Increasingly, firms need to be made accountable and subject to the rule of law. As UN researcher Peter Utting notes, “Historically, progress associated with corporate social and environmental responsibility has been driven, to a large extent, by state regulation, collective bargaining and civil society activism. Increasing reliance on voluntary initiatives may be undermining these drivers of corporate responsibility.â€Â The urgency of this demand cannot be overstated. On 14 May 2004 the Financial Times reported that in an effort to avoid renewed government efforts to contain the spread of corporate malfeasance and bad governance practices many firms are steadfastly considering taking themselves private (or avoiding becoming publicly traded) in order to avoid heighten scrutiny of regulators and being held accountable in any meaningful way. On the very same day in the Wall Street Journal in a standing column (that might be better characterized as a “Corporate Crime Blotterâ€Â) called “Executives on Trialâ€Â reports focused on four firms on trial concerning revenues of more than one billion dollars on charges for grand larceny, fraud, falsifying business records, amongst other charges. These phenomena take places in a globalized context where “in the most basic sense, corporate crime has disappeared by definition.â€Â As Snider notes, “Thus even when stock market fraud seems poised to destroy the system of exchange that is the foundation of capitalism, the neo-liberal religion of deregulation retains its hold on financial elites. …If blame is assessed, it falls on so-called ‘rogue traders’, not on the economic system that supports and legitimates their acts.â€Â In the face of these injustices and criminal acts we must craft new forms of globally binding corporate governance and policing. We need to work for democratic control of corporate crime. Such control imposes democratic will and justice over illicit firm behavior. Repeat corporate criminals are subject to stern laws and may even be dismantled--executed. Democratic control of corporate crime imposes a fiscally conservative three-strikes rule on corporate criminal behavior. After three criminal violations, of any scale, firms are liquidated and their assets are returned to the public, in order to mitigate the harm they have caused.
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Christopher Brauchli My cup runneth over 23d Psalm Dame Fortune never quits smiling on Halliburton and its subsidiaries. Just when it looks as though something is about to go awry, she steps in and it all turns out just fine. One of the nicest things Dame Fortune did for Halliburton, of course, was to make Dick Cheney, with the modest assistance of the United States Supreme Court, the vice-president of the United States. That is a very good position for someone to hold, especially if part of that person’s philosophy includes blowing up countries that one perceives to be potentially inimical to one’s interests as Mr. Cheney does. It means that each time a country is blown up there will be need for the kind of work Mr. Cheney’s former company does. Having made him vice president, Dame Fortune feels free to enlist Mr. Cheney’s aid whenever Halliburton calls on her for help. And given Halliburton’s conduct, she has had to call on him repeatedly for help. Halliburton’s subsidiary, Kellogg Brown and Root, has demonstrated that what it is doing in Iraq is so enormously complicated that it is impossible to get the billing right the first time. In mid-August a company spokesman said that the government’s shifting needs and the complexity of providing required logistical support made accounting difficult. Among the company’s past difficulties was over billing the U.S. government by $27.4 million for meals served to American troops. That, the company explained was not directly KBR’s problem. KBR subcontracted the food service to an Iraqi company which billed for roughly three times more meals than it actually served its customers. KBR couldn’t have anticipated the over billing even though the company sent a memorandum to the subcontractor telling it to charge for "the projected number of meals or the actual head count-whichever is greater." In January it was reported that two KBR employees had taken kickbacks from a Kuwaiti subcontractor providing services to troops in Kuwait. KBR repaid the U.S. $6.3 million when that was discovered. These were only tips of the iceberg. In early August it was disclosed in a Pentagon internal report that KBR had failed to fully account for a portion of the $4.2 billion it received for work done in Iraq and Kuwait. Under government contracting rules, when an accounting is found wanting, 15% of the amount owed is withheld until accounting issues have been resolved. During 2004 Halliburton received two extensions to give it time to resolve those issues. The last extension expired on August 11 and for a very short time it looked. as though there would not be another extension. Commenting on the Pentagon internal report, a spokesperson for Halliburton said the report was only advisory and the agency making it has "no authority to determine the adequacy of our systems." She went on to say that the Pentagon report is part of a routine process that is "amicably resolved." She got the amicable part right although there were some anxious moments. Early in the morning of August 17 Dame Fortune was awakened by a desperate call from executives at Halliburton informing her that the government planned to withhold about $60 million a month from KBR until accounting issues were resolved. That call was especially desperate since on August 16 the army and the company had jointly announced that it had been agreed no money would be withheld and KBR would be given additional time to prove its costs. Explaining that decision, Linda Theis, a spokeswoman for the Army Materiel Command, said the army was trying to be "fair and equitable." Shortly after the announcement was made the army changed its mind about what was fair and equitable and announced it would withhold payments after all. Upset at the Pentagon’s change of heart, Halliburton got on the phone with Dame Fortune and, as usual, she came through. Late in the day on August 17, the army announced it had changed its mind yet again and would give KBR a third extension. A few days after the extension was granted the army announced that it planned to divide the $12 billion of work previously given to Halliburton among several companies and require Halliburton to bid on the contracts. Although having to bid on contracts it had received without bidding might seem like an unfavorable turn of events, it is not. David Lesar, Halliburton’s chief executive explained: "If we do choose to rebid, we’re going to jack the margins up significantly, " thus suggesting that contracts Halliburton receives with higher profit margins will make up for the money the company lost after it quit overcharging the taxpayer. All in all, August was a good month for Halliburton thanks to Dame Fortune and her vice presidential friend.
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Dr Michael Dorsey Member of Dartmouth College Faculty of Science.
Michael's work covers a wide variety of international and environmental policy concerns. Who Will (C)ontrol Ag(R)iculture and Knowledge? As the new millennium began, by the end of 2001, the top 10 agrochemical corporations controlled 84% of the $30 billion agrochemical market; the top 10 veterinary pharmaceutical companies controlled 60% of the $13.6 billion world market; and the top 10 pharmaceutical companies controlled an estimated 48% of the $317 billion world market. [1] Only six corporations control 98% of the world's market in genetically modified crops. [2] The same six firms also control 70% of the world's pesticide market. And 94% of all genetically modified crops grown worldwide were from one company's germplasm: Monsanto's.
BASF, Bayer-Aventis, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngenta are recidivistic corporate criminals.
What is worrisome is that all six of the afore-mentioned "life science" firms in alphabetical order: BASF, Bayer-Aventis, Dow, DuPont, Monsanto and Syngentare recidivistic corporate criminals. Let us take a partial look at the proverbial police blotter: BASF. In 1999, the German firm pleaded guilty and paid a $225 million fine for its role in a world-wide antitrust conspiracy to raise and fix prices and allocate market shares for certain vitamins. [3] Bayer-Aventis. In October 2002 a report listed H.C. Starck (a wholly owned subsidiary of Bayer AG) as the buyer of over 80% of the coltan originating in the Democratic Republic of Congo. [4] By purchasing coltan from one or another of the warring factions in the DRC, H.C. Starck has been fuelling the two-year conflict. Dow has been surreptitiously involved in the manufacture and illegal dumping of dioxin-laden chemicals for nearly the past half century. Dupont’s subsidiary Pioneer HiBred is the largest seed company in the world. Recently the company and Monsanto decided to share proprietary agricultural biotechnologies. According to Hope Shand, Research Director at the ETC Group, the companies "are being allowed to create global technology cartels that run below the radar screens of anti-trust regulators" clearly in violation of antitrust laws. [5] Further, Dupont and other chemical companies have been accused of trying to suppress evidence regarding the severe toxicity of dioxins, hardly surprising given the quantities of these carcinogens they churn out every year. Monsanto. In 2002 a jury in the State of Alabama found Monsanto Co. guilty of releasing tons of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the city of Anniston and covering up its actions for 40 years. The jury held Monsanto liable on all six criminal counts including outrage. Under Alabama law, the rare crime of 'outrag' typically requires conduct "so outrageous in character and extreme in degree as to go beyond all possible bounds of decency so as to be regarded as atrocious and utterly intolerable in civilized society." Syngenta. In June 2002, the NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) asked the US Environmental Protection Agency to ban the use of atrazine, the most widely used weed-killer in the US. NRDC further requested that EPA and the Justice Department launch a criminal investigation of Syngenta, atrazine's principal manufacturer, for allegedly covering up the studies. The studies show that atrazine poses a significant threat to public health. Syngenta also attracted criticism for its continued manufacture and sale of the herbicide paraquat. Workers and farmers regularly exposed to paraquat experience serious ill health, even death. The nature, extent and recurrence of these crimes underscore the fact that there is something fundamentally and systematically wrong with the "life science" industry as a whole. The fact that these firms are also the largest and arguably most powerful entities in their industry also hints that there is something fundamentally wrong, flawed or at minimum derisory with the very concept and social form deemed the large transnational corporation (TNC).
"what is profitable affects, or even determines, what is scientifically true."
Quixotically, the mantra endorsed by more and more governments at the behest and request of these recidivists is, "trust the recidivist," variously presented as "corporate responsibility" or "our firm can self-regulate" Agents provocateurs of the recidivists, variously cloaked as scholars, policy analysts and 'experts', effectively aid and abet these criminals. Collectively these savants are increasingly jockeying to elaborate, endorse and uphold the feasibility and possibility of "corporate responsibility" pacts and TNC voluntarism in lieu of regulation and further criminal prosecution. The OECD has a different view; a June 2003 report titled Voluntary Approaches for Environmental Policy: Effectiveness, Efficiency and Usage in Policy Mixes makes clear that the "environmental effectiveness of voluntary approaches is still questionable." From market to knowledge monopolies The extent of the sectoral concentration and control exercised by these criminal firms certainly means that they play a role in shaping markets, often illegally. These firms also have tremendous influence over knowledge, information and public perception of GMOs, GM crops and foods. Because of intense competition, firms are seeking to concentrate their control on life and life processes by controlling knowledge itself in the form of intellectual property. 95% of patents on life or life processes are held in industrial countries. The average cost to solicit a patent is approximately $20,000, with an annual upkeep of $5000, while litigating a patent can cost on average over $1 million. As Vandana Shiva put it recently in her regular ZNet posting, "Genetic engineering is not merely causing genetic pollution of biodiversity and creating bio-imperialism, monopolies over life itself. It is also causing knowledge pollution”by undermining independent science, and promoting pseudo science. It is leading to monopolies over knowledge and information." Conjoining tight control over markets and knowledge is a relatively new threat to ecosystems and humanity. Since the mid-1800s agriculture, as a social form, has become increasingly about making money, especially for capitalists, who increasingly position themselves to control the form. As rural sociologist Jack Kloppenberg opined in First the Seed, "the agricultural sciences have over time become increasingly subordinated to capital and this ongoing process has shaped both the content of research and, necessarily, the character of the products." Kloppenburg was only echoing the truism of turn-of-the-century biologist Hugo de Vries, who posited that what is profitable affects, or even determines, what is "scientifically true." The trouble flowing out of the BioBelt, as Monsanto likes to refer to the collection of firms would-be bio-boutiques that have spawned in the vicinity of its St. Louis headquarters, could not be better stated.
No longer did Monsanto have to do the dirty work. It could suggest and encourage state police forces to suppress voices of dissent.
But as Brian Tokar argues in the book, Re-designing Life, "biotechnology seeks to alter the fundamental patterns of nature so as better to satisfy the demands of the commercial market placeâ" independent of the needs of the state and its people. So when soil fertility and plant health are compromised by monocropping and excessive pesticide use, the biotech solution is to engineer crops tolerant to herbicides and low soil fertility. When industrial scale irrigation projects or global warming handicap or threaten water supplies, biotechnologists argue for engineering drought-resistant crops. The seductive easy fix is to engineer away the problem or, worse, pretend root causes are non-existent. Resistance is fertile 2003 marked the seventh gathering of the Bio-devastation conference cum protest. The gathering was held in St. Louis concurrently with the World Agricultural Forum the self-described "only forum uniting [elite] leaders from disparate organizations" including government, academia, corporations, foundations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). In July 1998 the First International Grassroots Gathering on Biodevastation was called by members of the Gateway Green Alliance in St. Louis to bring together grassroots opponents of genetic engineering to learn and strategize. [6] The meeting brought together concerned scientists and representatives of popular movements from Ireland, England, Mexico, Canada, the European Parliament, India and the United States, as well as a large contingent of farmer and consumer activists from Japan. In 2003, Monsanto collaborated closely with the St. Louis police department and the organizers of the World Agricultural Forum to disrupt Biodevastation 7. Members of a bicycle circus touring the US to spread the word about the problems of GMOs were detained for cycling without licenses under an ordinance that had been off the books for two years. Other activists were arrested in two buildings which were being renovated with city permits; city inspectors posted the buildings “condemned†immediately in advance of the police's warrantless entry. Activists’ property was seized, destroyed, vandalized or displayed as weapons e.g., roofing nails and juggling torches. No longer did Monsanto have to do the dirty work. It could suggest and encourage state police forces to suppress voices of dissent of a growing number of citizens. In the space of seven Biodevastation conferences over the past half-decade a host of alternatives to both the material and knowledge hegemony of Monsanto and its peers have been showcased, discussed and debated. It's worth elaborating at least two areas. Beyond engineered security: Toward food sovereignty Gordon Conway, President of the Rockefeller Foundation, Norman Borlaug, and other scientists and policy mavens of (ill) repute hype and pimp The Next Green Revolution or a Doubly Green Revolution, often on the premise that Roads, fertilizer and science can revive a continent. In the global south and north other scientists are pressing for food sovereignty. [7] An alternative wave is cresting if only because, as Conway has admitted, the Green Revolution was blunted by problems of social inequity, unequal access to resources, and policies that are short-sighted or benefit only the wealthy. In Africa the Zambian Agricultural Minister in September 2002, on the eve of one of the worst droughts in the recorded history of the region, noted that he would prefer starvation for himself and Zambians rather than receive GE crops and GMO- infested food aid. In Rome in 2002 a gathering affirmed, Food sovereignty is a right of countries and peoples to define their own agricultural, pastoral, fisheries and food policies which are ecologically, socially, economically and culturally appropriate. Food sovereignty promotes the Right to Food for the entire population, through small and medium-sized production, respecting: the cultures, diversity of peasants, pastoralists, fisherfolk, Indigenous Peoples and their innovation systems, their ways and means of production, distribution and marketing and their management of rural areas and landscapes. Women play a fundamental role in ensuring food sovereignty. [8]
Those calling for food sovereignty identify the roots of hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity in the international trade-led hegemonic economic model.
Those calling for food sovereignty identify the roots of hunger, malnutrition and food insecurity in the international trade-led hegemonic economic model that is variously propped up and enforced by the World Trade Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF). Such an outlook frames agricultural issues in terms of global political economy, not in terms of a technological or engineering problem. The proponents of sovereignty see GE crops not exclusively as dangerous per se but consider it a technology eminently capable of facilitating corporate oligopoly, or the monopolization of agriculture and ultimately the very meaning of food. Opening knowledge: CopyLeft! to BioLinux A word play on copyright the CopyLeft movement was born as a reaction to the increasing encroachment of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the software industry. The idea behind Copyleft is that software should be protected by free licenses, so-called GNU General Public Licenses (GNU GPL), as a means to facilitate sharing and exchange without the imposition of restrictive copyright licenses and associated royalties. The movement gave birth to the Linux operating system programming effort.
BioLinux would enable plant varieties to be in the public domain, freely exchangeable with unrestricted rights to others to experiment, improve, innovate and share
Srinivas has argued for the extension of the GNU GPL into the protection of plant varieties, agro-machinery and related agricultural products. [9] Dubbed BioLinux, such a GNU GPL would enable plant varieties to be in the public domain, freely exchangeable with unrestricted rights to others to experiment, improve, innovate and share without concern for traditional intellectual property barriers.
any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.
For some the notion that IPRs would be substantially curtailed (even eliminated) strikes as a supreme heresy. IPRs represent the only mechanism to foster and secure continuous innovation in a given sector, agricultural or otherwise. Economists, however, are not unanimous on the efficacy of IPRs for securing and fostering innovation. Further, proponents of GNU GPL are cognizant that any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. Thus they argue they wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone’s free use or not licensed at all. BioLinux would be analogously applied to agriculturally related items. Conclusion The life science industries, in total, are represented by at least eight overlapping subsectors. These include seed firms; agrochemical concerns; agroforestry; veterinary services and medicine; food processors, packagers and providers; biotechnology; pharmaceuticals; and the latest arrival, nanotech cum bioinformatics. Agriculture is the nexus that connects these seemingly disparate concerns. Together these sectors represent a capitalized market valued between $2.54 trillion. Approximately one dozen firms control 3/4 of this market. Accordingly, rarely are the outcomes and outputs of these industries oriented to humanitarian ends i.e., feeding and curing people, or tackling hunger or disease. Instead, increasingly these industries are committed, at best, to feeding themselves and their shareholders increasing profits, making well people better, and fomenting simultaneously social sickness and corporate wealth. The name of the game is, privatize benefits and socialize costs. The response and resistance to the ideological and material hegemony of agri-capitalists is widespread. The foundation for resistance emerges from ethical concerns and reasoning. Chaia Heller suggests asking ourselves, What ought to be the means through which we achieve a society that ought to be whereas the countervailing technologist is preoccupied with œefficient outcomes that are largely based on instrumentalist thought. The challenge ahead for humane, democratized agriculture seems to be how to insert further rupture into instrumentalist outlooks. Notes 1. All the three top tens are from: Globalization, Inc., Concentration in Corporate Power: The Unmentioned Agenda, Issue #71. ETC Group: Winnipeg, Canada, 2001. 2. Action Aid Crops and Robbers Report. 2001. 3. See US Department of Justice Press Release: F. Hoffmann-La Roche and BASF Agree To Pay Record Criminal Fines For Participating In International Vitamin Cartel Thursday, 20 May 1999. Available at: www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/1999/May/196at.htm 4. The Coltan Phenomenon: How a rare mineral has changed the life of the population of war-torn North Kivu province in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo (Original in French). The Pole Institute, 2001; www.pole-institute.org. 5. DuPont and Monsanto Living in Sinergy. ETC Group, 5 September 2002, http://www.rafi.org/documents/nr2002apr9.pdf, viewed 7 October 2003. 6. See http://www.biodev.org/. 7. Borlaug opines on the pages of the New York Times (July 11, 2003) that “Biotechnology should be a part of African agricultural reform; African leaders will be making a grievous error if they turn their backs to it.†8. This definition comes from the Action Agenda of the June 8–13, 2003 meeting. See www.forumfoodsovereignty.org. 9. Srinivas, R. 2002 The Case for Biolinuxes, and Other Pro-Commons Innovations,Sarai Reader, India. |
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Karsten Nowrot
Towards a Presumption of Normative Responsibilities
It hardly needs to be pointed out anymore that transnational enterprises are generally considered to be economic as well as – through the participation of these entities in the law-making processes – to an increasing extent, political actors in the current international system. The growing importance of these non-state actors on the international scene results in chances for but also risks to the realization of community interests, also known as global public goods, such as the protection of human rights and the environment as well as the enforcement of core labour and social standards. On the one side, transnational enterprises, because of their influence on the home as well as the host countries, could in the course of their activities effectively contribute to the enforcement of these community interests. On the other side, however, these entities also have the potential to frustrate the universal realization of the protection of human and labour rights and the environment either through their own activities or indirectly by way of supporting state actors, predominantly in oppressive regimes, in their respective conduct.
Taking into account this consequently at first ambivalent potential of transnational enterprises with regard to the realization of community interests in the international system, as well as the fact that the aim of promoting these global public goods is at the centre of the current international legal order, the question arises as to whether these non-state actors in addition to their de facto significance are – as subjects of international law – also in a normative sense integrated in the international system and thus under a legal obligation to contribute to the promotion of human rights, sustainable development and labour standards. Considering the overwhelming importance of this issue for the future direction and consequences of the processes of globalization, it is hardly surprising that an intensive debate is currently taking place with regard to the possibilities for making transnational enterprises responsible, under international law, for respecting global public goods. By adding a number of new thoughts, this article is meant to be a small contribution to the ongoing discussion on this evolving issue.
According to the predominant view among international legal scholars, not all of the various different entities participating in contemporary international relations can be regarded as subjects of international law, even if they may have some degree of influence on the international society. De facto participation in the international system is not equivalent to acting on the international scene in legally relevant ways, and thus not deserving of the qualification as a subject of international law. Rather, international legal personality requires factual participation and some form of community acceptance through the granting of rights and duties under international law to the entity in question. On the basis of these generally recognized prerequisites for achieving international legal personality, the still prevailing view among international legal scholars is that transnational enterprises cannot be regarded as subjects of international law in the sense of being addressees of international legal obligations to promote the realization of the above mentioned global public goods. Despite some notable recent developments, such as the attempts towards the enforcement of human rights obligations towards these actors before domestic courts in the United States, as well as in the realm of “soft law” the adoption of the Norms on the Responsibility of Transnational Corporations and Other Business Enterprises with Regard to Human Rights by the UN Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights in August 2003 (which however received a rather “cool” response by the Commission on Human Rights in April 2004), one probably has to agree with the predominant view that transnational enterprises have neither under treaty law nor under international customary law received a sufficient degree of normative acceptance by the international community with regard to the imposition of obligations under international law.
However, it appears to be questionable whether the so far generally recognized prerequisites for the achievement of international legal personality – the explicit granting of rights or duties under international law by the international community – can in the light of the changing structure of the international system still be regarded as an appropriate approach for the identification of normative responsibilities of powerful actors on the international scene.
A broad consensus exists among international legal scholars that the international society can be characterized as a community governed by the rule of law. Thus it is the purpose of this society to pursue international stability and avoid disputes and the arbitrary exercise of power. In order to pursue these goals in an effective way, the development of international law is in general dependent upon a close conformity to the realities in the international system. As a consequence, the granting of international legal personality also has to orientate itself to the changing sociological circumstances on the international scene. Therefore, the international legal order needs to set the relations between all the de facto powerful entities in the international system on a legal basis, since a failure to bring the major actors under the rule of law imposes unnecessary risks on the inherently fragile international legal system.
It follows from these findings that – contrary to the currently still predominant view concerning the prerequisites of international legal personality – in the light of the aims to be pursued by the international legal order already on the basis of a de facto influential position in the international system a rebuttable presumption exists in favour of the respective actor being subject to international legal obligations with regard to the promotion of community interests. This presumption can only be refuted by way of a contrary expression of the international community in a legally binding form stating that the respective category of actors is not obliged to observe human rights as well as recognized environmental and labour standards. This last mentioned option has thereby to be regarded as a currently still necessary concession to the still predominant position especially of states in the international system and the resulting possibility of these actors to influence, to a certain extent, the granting of subjectivity under international law.
Consequently, since transnational enterprises are in an economic as well as political sense powerful actors in the current international system, they are subject to the presumption – not rebutted by the international community – of being bound to promote the realization of global public goods such as the protection of human and labour rights as well as recognized environmental standards.
It is submitted that this new concept concerning the establishment of international legal personality is clearly more in conformity with the evolving image of an international legal community which has as its central aim the civilization of international relations and the promotion of global public goods to the benefit of all.
Karsten Nowrot, LL.M. (Indiana)
Transnational Economic Law Centre (Director: Prof. Dr. Christian Tietje, LL.M.),
Faculty of Law, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany.
Website: www.jura.uni-halle.de/telc/
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