USCIB Is Gearing Up for This Year’s Big UN Nutrition Conference

Published on March 21, 2014

The Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) will take place from November 19 to 21 in Rome with the participation of heads of state and government. Organized by two UN specialized agencies, the World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization, the event will address major nutrition challenges over the coming decades.

According to Helen Medina, USCIB’s senior director of product policy and innovation, the conference is expected to result in a concise, action-oriented outcome document, identifying public policy priorities at the national and global levels to address malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and obesity, with a view to achieving agreed global nutrition targets by 2025.

“This will be a watershed event, the first high-level intergovernmental conference on nutrition since the First International Conference on Nutrition was organized by FAO and WHO in 1992,” Medina said. “That conference resulted in a World Declaration and Plan of Action for Nutrition which called on governments to take action toward improved nutrition at the national level, and to establish institutional infrastructure to implement these plans.” She said two documents are expected to come out of the ICN2: a high-level outcome document and a more detailed framework of action for its implementation.

Fostering the private sector’s contributions to improved nutrition

Medina attended last year’s technical meeting that lay the groundwork for the conference. This year, USCIB continues its involvement in the preparations for ICN2, including by highlighting how the private sector is contributing to nutrition through the FAO online consultation on the draft outcome document. Click here to read USCIB’s comments.

In its comments, USCIB recommended that the document recognize the private sector’s contributions to improved nutrition through innovative products, scientific and technological know-how, and improved production and management practices. These can all be increasingly harnessed through effective partnerships with research institutions, farmers, policy-makers and civil society, USCIB said.

Furthermore, the private sector can play a critical role in further strengthening markets, spurring economic growth and improving livelihoods, USCIB said. The comments observed that, while private-sector involvement is critical, there is also a need for government collaboration, particularly in helping to ensure sensible policies, such as reducing barriers to trade, that do not impede the private sector’s potential contributions to the shared societal goal of improved nutrition.

Staff contact: Helen Medina

More on USCIB’s Health Care Working Group

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USCIB Notes Importance of NTIA Announcement on Internet

Published on March 20, 2014

U.S. agency intends to transition certain Internet domain name functions while preserving system’s security, stability and resiliency

New York, N.Y., March 20, 2014 – The United States Council for International Business (USCIB) acknowledged the importance of the March 14 announcement by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) that it intends to transition key Internet domain name functions.

“We welcome the opportunity to actively participate in the multi-stakeholder dialogue that ICANN and the Internet community will convene to develop productive responses that meet NTIA’s criteria,“ said USCIB President and CEO Peter M. Robinson.

“We especially applaud NTIA’s resolve to ‘maintain the security, stability, and resiliency of the Internet Domain Name System’ and not to ‘accept a proposal that replaces the NTIA role with a government-led or an inter-governmental organization solution.’”

Robinson said USCIB has been a stalwart supporter of the multi-stakeholder model for Internet governance. “We believe the consultative input of business, government, the technical community and civil society is imperative to ensure that the Internet remains an open, safe and secure platform for innovation, creativity, job creation and economic growth throughout the world,” he said.

About USCIB:

USCIB promotes open markets, competitiveness and innovation, sustainable development and corporate responsibility, supported by international engagement and regulatory coherence. Its members include U.S.-based global companies and professional services firms from every sector of our economy, with operations in every region of the world. With a unique global network encompassing leading international business organizations, USCIB provides business views to policy makers and regulatory authorities worldwide, and works to facilitate international trade and investment. More at www.uscib.org.

Contact:
Jonathan Huneke, USCIB
+1 212.703.5043, jhuneke@uscib.org

More on USCIB’s Information, Communications and Technology Committee

ITC Testimony

Published on March 6, 2014

USCIB Member Testimony on the Investigation into Digital Trade in the U.S. and Global Economies

FAO Principles for Responsible Agriculture Investment

Published on March 5, 2014

Helen Medina, USCIB’s senior director for product policy and innovation, has been working with the International Agri-Food Network (IAFN) to provide input into the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) set of Principles for Responsible Agriculture Investment (RAI) in the context of food security and nutrition.

The objective of the principles, as requested by the Committee on World Food Security (CFS), is to promote responsible investments in agriculture and food systems that contribute to food security and nutrition and support the progressive realization of the right to adequate food in the context of national food security. The principles address all stakeholders that are involved in, benefit from, or are affected by investments in food systems.

Most recently, Medina posted comments on behalf of USCIB to the FAO’s Forum on Food Security and Nutrition. USCIB will continue to monitor progress, as well as provide comments to the Committee on World Food Security’s consultative process, in conjunction with its partner, the IAFN. The Committee on Food Security’s RAI principles will be presented and negotiated at a plenary session in May in Rome.

Thus far, USCIB has made several recommendations in regards to the agriculture investment principles, including on the role of the private sector, and in the areas of investment and the environment, and monitoring and evaluation of implementation of principles. USCIB has had concerns in regards to the monitoring and evaluation, as well as the roles and responsibilities. Furthermore, the principles do not address the question of who will monitor progress, or whether there will be an entity to which companies and countries will report.

USCIB supports the following messages:

The principles should be forward thinking and encourage the right actions in a manner that respects the broad diversity of the agri-food system.
One investment cannot achieve all things. For instance, we want to encourage linking to smallholders, but not every investment is in primary production. It may be further down the value chain or it may not be particularly relevant in that geography.
Environmental impacts of investment projects should be assessed and measures taken to encourage sustainable resource use while minimizing the risk of negative impacts and mitigating them.
Good governance structures are required; domestic markets and foreign investment require the same conducive operating environment, including: peace and stability, the rule of law, good governance with accountability and transparency, the absence of corruption, adequate infrastructure, an educated workforce, clear property rights, open markets and trade, and enforceable contracts.
Clearly articulated national priorities for development can help guide investment and assess the most suited investment proposals.
Investments should take place in: sustainable agricultural practices; rural infrastructure, storage capacities and related technologies; research and development on sustainable agricultural technologies; developing strong agricultural cooperatives and value chains; reducing post-harvest and other food losses and waste throughout the food supply chain.
All stakeholders involved and affected by large scale investments should be part of the consultation and assessment process.
Both public and private sector investment can contribute to develop a robust agricultural sector and value chain – both need the same conducive operating environment, offering predictability, transparency, accountability, and stability.

Staff contacts: Helen Medina

More on USCIB’s Food and Agriculture Committee

USCIB Competition Committee Leadership Transition

Published on February 26, 2014

It was the end of an era at the February 20 meeting of USCIB’s Competition Committee in Washington, D.C., as longtime Chair Michael Blechman (Kaye Scholer) and Vice Chair Jim Rill (Baker Botts), stepped down and passed the baton to new Chair John Taladay (Baker Botts) and Vice Chair Jennifer Patterson (Kaye Scholer).

Handing off the reins at USCIB’s Competition Committee (L-R): Jennifer Patterson (Kaye Scholer), John Taladay (Baker Botts), Michael Blechman (Kaye Scholer), Jim Rill (Baker Botts), Rob Mulligan (USCIB)

Blechman and Rill, who have been esteemed and productive leaders of the committee for 20 years, said it has been a great pleasure to work together. Rob Mulligan, USCIB’s senior vice president for policy and government affairs, marked the leadership transition by recognizing Blechman and Rill’s contributions and welcoming Taladay and Patterson. USCIB looks forward to working with the new Competition Committee leadership and to continuing the committee’s high-quality work.

Taladay is currently the vice chair of the Competition Committee at BIAC, the Business and Industry Advisory Council to the OECD, a lead drafter on consultations and responses to the OECD’s Competition Committee, and a non-governmental advisor to the International Competition Network.

Patterson co-chairs the International Chamber of Commerce’s Task Force on Due Process, and also serves as a non-governmental advisor at the International Competition Network. Taladay and Patterson will work with all members to ensure that USCIB’s Competition Committee remains an active and engaged forum for dialogue, puts forth strong messaging on important antitrust issues and coordinates with USCIB’s partner organizations.

The committee was also honored to host Chairwoman Edith Ramirez of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for remarks over lunch regarding the global policy direction of the FTC’s antitrust activities and her recent meetings with officials from China’s antitrust agencies.

Staff contact: Justine Badimon

USCIB Takes Part in APEC Chemicals Meetings

Published on February 25, 2014

Sarah Green, senior science advisor with the State Department, and USCIB’s Helen Medina (right) at the APEC Chemicals Dialogue steering group meeting in Ningbo, China.

Earlier this month, Helen Medina, USCIB’s senior director for product policy and innovation, took part in the APEC Chemical Dialogue Steering Group and related meetings in Ningbo, China. The sessions were held in concert with the first APEC senior officials meeting of China’s host year.

The goal of the steering group meetings was to prepare for the upcoming APEC Chemical Dialogue meeting in August, which will take place in the northern Chinese city of Harbin.

The Chemical Dialogue is an important forum in which APEC officials and industry representatives come together for public-private dialogue on chemical issues in the Asia-Pacific region. It affords industry representatives an opportunity to work with regulators and trade officials from the APEC economies on a variety of project-based issues.

Prior to the steering group sessions, there was an industry meeting in which industry participants gathered to discuss their priorities going forward and to formulate industry-wide positions, which were then discussed with their government counterparts. During the discussion about the types of outcomes industry is seeking, Medina made an intervention about the importance of having the downstream user’s perspective in the work.

Medina also suggested that, in order to promote the common goal of regulatory coherence throughout the economies participating, it would be useful to identify the projects that each of these initiatives is undertaking that relates to the regulation of chemicals, and to describe the work that is being done.

The major themes of the steering group meeting dealt with regulatory cooperation and concrete projects. One item of particular importance to USCIB members is how confidential business information is being treated in APEC economies. USCIB has taken a lead by developing a survey to address this question.

Medina presented the objectives and importance of the survey. She reminded participants that no other international governmental organization, such as APEC, is discussing this topic and that the chemical dialogue has the opportunity to produce a work project to better understand how APEC economies are sharing information.

Once information has been gathered from the survey, the goal would be to foster a discussion on how the Chemical Dialogue can work to converge on how economies protect confidential business information, and what type of information is considered confidential. The analysis of the results will be reported in Harbin later this year.

Other items discussed included a proposal for a workshop on regulatory cooperation at the Harbin meeting, which won wide support. The goal is to highlight issues to consider when implementing best practices for chemical management. USCIB will volunteer to be on the steering committee which will develop the workshop.

Another item, which comes under the theme of sustainability, was related to a Cooperative Activity in the Asia-Pacific on Marine Debris. The idea is to a establish a work stream to promote regional awareness and adoption of strategies to effectively manage and extract value from municipal solid waste, and to energize collaborative approaches to reducing plastic marine debris, including efforts to reduce plastic packaging through innovative product. This work could also contribute to broader APEC work on ocean issues.

Finally, Medina updated APEC members on the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) UN Environment Program-led project on Chemicals in Products. She highlighted industry’s concerns with the project and urged Chemical Dialogue members to get in touch with SAICM representatives that are involved. Given the importance of the project, participants agreed that it is imperative to keep this item on the agenda for the Chemical Dialogue in Harbin.

At the end of the meeting, Ryan Macfarlane, the State Department’s principal APEC coordinator, was formally introduced as chair of the Chemical Dialogue, succeeding Barbara Norton of USTR, who has retired.

Staff contact: Helen Medina

More on USCIB’s Product Policy Working Group

Conference to Spotlight Internet and ICTs as Drivers of Job Creation Worldwide

Published on January 27, 2014

The OECD has played a key role in Internet policy discussions since before its 2008 Seoul Ministerial. Pictured at that gathering are (L-R) then-BIAC Secretary General Tadahiro Asami, OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria, USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson and Oracle Corp. Vice President Joseph Alhadeff.

New York, January 27, 2014 – The Internet, along with related information and communications technologies (ICTs), now forms a fundamental supporting infrastructure for the global economy. Recent developments have focused attention squarely on issues of online privacy, trust, security and freedom on a global scale. New policies resulting from this scrutiny could dramatically reshape the online experience for users, including business, and undermine the potential of the Internet and ICTs to serve as engines for jobs creation and growth.

This is the backdrop for an upcoming conference organized by the United States Council for International Business (USCIB), “Growth, Jobs and Prosperity in the Digital Age: OECD Shapes the Policy Environment,” which promises to address some of today’s most important Internet policy questions for an audience of global business leaders and policy makers. The conference, which takes place March 10 at the Microsoft Innovation & Policy Center in Washington, D.C., is being presented by the United States Council Foundation, USCIB’s educational arm, along with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and BIAC, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD.

“It is important for both business and government to recognize the important and unique role that the OECD has played in the development of the Internet as a source of economic growth and societal benefit,” said Joseph Alhadeff vice president and chief privacy officer with Oracle Corp., who serves as chair of BIAC’s Committee on Information, Communications and Computer Policy and vice chair of USCIB’s ICT Policy Committee.

“From the Ottawa Ministerial in 1998, where the OECD helped facilitate e-commerce, to the Seoul Ministerial in 2008, which addressed the role of the Internet in spurring innovation and economic growth, to its current work on privacy, security, cloud and big data, the OECD has played an important role at the intersection of policy, technology, economy and innovation,” Alhadeff said. “This program will help draw attention to this essential work.”

The conference will feature top experts from the OECD’s Committee on Information, Communications and Computer Policy division along with senior U.S. and foreign government officials, plus experts from business and civil society. Key confirmed speakers include H.E. Diego Molano Vega, Colombia’s minister of information technologies and communications, and Commissioner Julie Brill of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

The program will explore cutting-edge issues affecting the ICT sector against a backdrop of rapidly changing technologies and a more complex policy environment. In particular, participants will consider how emerging technologies such as big data, cloud computing and the “Internet of things” create greater efficiencies and new business opportunities.

“Some of these new opportunities can be optimized through risk-based approaches to privacy and security developed by the OECD,” said Alhadeff. “We will also examine how the OECD’s Seoul Declaration for the Future of the Internet Economy, the OECD Internet Policy Principles, and other important work products have influenced, and are relevant to, many issues under consideration in current trade policy discussions and negotiations.”

In view of ICT’s importance to all sectors of the economy, the March 10 program will be open to business participants from ICT and ICT-user communities. It will also welcome representatives of the Internet technical community as well as civil society. More information is available at https://uscib.org/growth-jobs-prosperity-in-the-digital-age-ud-4660.

About USCIB:
USCIB promotes open markets, competitiveness and innovation, sustainable development and corporate responsibility, supported by international engagement and regulatory coherence. Its members include U.S.-based global companies and professional services firms from every sector of our economy, with operations in every region of the world. With a unique global network encompassing leading international business organizations, including BIAC, USCIB provides business views to policy makers and regulatory authorities worldwide, and works to facilitate international trade and investment. More at www.uscib.org.

Contact:
Jonathan Huneke, USCIB
+1 212.703.5043, jhuneke@uscib.org

More on USCIB’s Information, Communications and Technology Committee

Save the date Growth Jobs Prosperity in the Digital Age OECD Shapes the Policy Environment

Published on January 15, 2014

Save the Date!

Growth, Jobs, & Prosperity in the Digital Age:
OECD Shapes the Policy Environment
March 10, 2014
12:00 noon – 5:00 p.m.
Reception: 5:00 – 7:00 p.m.

Microsoft Innovation & Policy Center
901 K Street, NW, 11^th Floor
Washington, DC 20001

Andrew Wyckoff, Director of the OECD Directorate for Science, Technology and Industry (STI), will lead a unique business/government dialogue, which will include other top experts from the OECD’s Information, Computer and Communications Policy (ICCP) division and senior U.S. and foreign government officials. They will explore policy and regulatory challenges affecting U.S. companies that rely on ICT for business operations.

Proposed Topics

Internet Governance: Defending Stakeholder Principles
Shaping the Future of the Digital Economy: The Role of the OECD
Enhancing Trust and Boosting Innovation in the Digital Ecosystem
Global Trade & Local Rules: New Opportunities and Challenges for Digital Trade
Developments in Colombia’s ICT Sector, Policies and Regulations

Invited Keynotes

H.E. Diego Molano Vega – Minister of Information Technologies and Communications, Government of Colombia
Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda – Deputy Assistant Secretary and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs, U.S. Department of State

Information on registration and the agenda to follow shortly.

Brought to you by:
United States Council for International Business (USCIB)
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (BIAC)

USCIBs Klein Named to International Tax Review’s Global Tax 50

Published on December 17, 2013

New York, N.Y., December 17, 2013 – USCIB’s Carol Doran Klein has been named one of International Tax Review‘s “Global Tax 50” for 2013, reflecting her own expertise and achievements as well as the business community’s close engagement with policy makers on international taxation.

In its profile of Klein, USCIB’s vice president for taxation, the influential publication said: “In a year that has seen large multilateral moves to tackle base erosion and profit shifting [BEPS], Klein has had her plate full in ensuring the concerns of U.S. business are heard. And with multiple action items on the OECD’s BEPS Action Plan scheduled for completion in 2014, her influence will continue to be critical if the views of U.S. business are to be heard in this international context.”

Now in its third year, the Global Tax 50 lists individuals and organizations who have had the greatest influence on tax policy, practice and administration in the last 12 months. Click here to read the entire listings on the International Tax Review website. Click here to read Klein’s profile and an interview.

“Hats off to Carol for this richly deserved honor,” exclaimed USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson. “I am delighted that all her hard work in representing business views to the OECD, to the United Nations and to national governments – including our own – is being recognized. Carol has become an indispensible resource for the business community and is providing a strong, knowledgeable voice on global tax matters.”

Others included in this year’s Global Tax 50 include: Will Morris, global tax policy advisor with GE and chair of the Taxation Committee at BIAC, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD (for which USCIB serves as the American affiliate); and Alan McLean, executive vice president for tax and corporate structure with Royal Dutch Shell, who is vice chair of the BIAC committee.

Each June, with BIAC and the OECD, USCIB holds an annual tax policy conference in Washington, D.C. This year’s conference is scheduled for June 2-3 at the Four Seasons Hotel. More information is available at www.uscibtax.org.