BIAC Presents Business View to OECD Competition Authorities

Published on July 1, 2014

Competition experts from the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) presented business views to the OECD and a number of non-OECD Member governments at the June session of the OECD Competition Committee and its working parties.

Addressing the revision of the 1995 OECD Recommendation of the Council Concerning Co-operation between Member Countries on Competition Investigations and Proceedings, BIAC emphasized continued concerns regarding the protection of confidential information in exchanges related to cross-border merger investigations.

BIAC also addressed Competition in Generic Pharmaceuticals, Airline Competition, competition and Public Private Partnerships (PPP), and competition aspects of the rollout of broadband networks. The OECD Competition Committee will next meet in December 2014. USCIB is BIAC’s American affiliate.

Staff contact: Justine Badimon

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Employers Reaffirm Commitment to UN Principles on Business and Human Rights

Published on June 30, 2014

The global business community voiced concern over last week’s vote by members of the United Nations Human Rights Council in favor of a proposal, put forward by Ecuador and South Africa, to negotiate a binding treaty on business and human rights.

Industry representatives said the vote could undermine ongoing efforts to implement the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the so-called “Ruggie Principles” which have garnered broad support among states, businesses and civil society.

That consensus was reaffirmed on Friday by the Council’s unanimous adoption of a second resolution put forward by a “core group,” consisting of Argentina, Ghana, Norway and Russia, which renewed the mandate of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights to continue facilitating the implementation of the UN Guiding Principles by governments and corporations.

According to USCIB’s Vice President for Labor, Corporate Responsibility and Governance Ariel Meyerstein, when compared to the unanimous support for the core group’s resolution, the narrow margin of support garnered by Ecuador and South Africa’s proposal – 20 countries supporting, 14 against and 13 abstaining – clearly reflects the lack of consensus behind an intergovernmental treaty-making process.

“While there is still a remarkable degree of agreement over the ”protect, respect and remedy” framework of the Guiding Principles and the multi-stakeholder approach of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, governments are clearly split over a treaty approach.” Meyerstein said, noting that the widespread uptake of the Guiding Principles after only three years far outpaced traditional treaty-making efforts and confirmed that it was a “trusted approach, which, if given sufficient time and support from national governments as well as the business sector, will achieve considerable results on the ground.”

Meyerstein spoke from Paris, where he attended the OECD’s 2^nd Annual Global Forum on Responsible Business Conduct, which gathered more than 700 participants from the international community to address the application of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises in implementing responsible business practices globally.

The International Organization of Employers (IOE), part of USCIB’s global network and the voice of business in the International Labor Organization and other UN bodies, also voiced its support for the Guiding Principles in the aftermath of the vote on the Ecuador-South Africa proposal, noting that:

“Notwithstanding the adoption of the Ecuador resolution yesterday, [the Guiding Principles] remain the right approach to strengthen the implementation of human rights on the ground. The IOE is fully committed to continue to collaborate closely with the UN Working Group, States and all other stakeholders to reach this aim.”

Prior to the vote, the IOE questioned the utility of devoting resources to drafting yet another treaty, particularly one, as currently proposed by Ecuador and South Africa, that targets only multinational firms but not purely domestic enterprises, and that might not be enforced in many countries where rights abuses are rampant.

“As Prof. Ruggie observed on multiple occasions in response to the Ecuador proposal, there is unfortunately no reason to believe the proposed binding instrument would enjoy a different fate in any of the jurisdictions where there are already deficits in human rights treaty ratification and enforcement and the rule of law,” Meyerstein said.

Staff contact: Ariel Meyerstein

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USCIB Promotes Business Innovation at Historic UN Environment Assembly

Published on June 30, 2014

Norine Kennedy (USCIB) speaks at the UN Environment Assembly’s side event on the roles of UNEP, the sustainable development goals and business.

USCIB and its business network took part in the first-ever UN Environment Assembly (UNEA) last week in Nairobi.

UNEA is the governing body of the UN Environment Program, meeting for the first time since it was created by the UN General Assembly. This principal UN environmental body has a membership of all 193 UN member states, making it the only “universal” body of the UN aside from the General Assembly. Over 1,200 participants, 170 national delegations, and 80 ministers were on hand for the five-day event from June 23 to 27 at UNEP’s HQ in Nairobi, Kenya.

USCIB representatives in Nairobi included Norine Kennedy, USCIB’s vice president for strategic international engagement, environment and energy, who serves as a co-chair of the UNEP coordinating group for non-governmental interests. The UN Environment Assembly’s agenda and outcomes included decisions on illegal trade in timber and wildlife, air quality and chemicals. During the five day meeting, UNEA also convened symposia on “Financing the Green Economy” and “The Environmental Rule of Law.”

The Green Economies Dialogue (GED) held a side event on June 26 in Nairobi on “The Role of the UN Environment Program (UNEP), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Business.” Held during the first ever U.N. Environment Assembly, this business event was co-hosted with the International Organization of Employers (IOE) and the International Council of Chemicals Associations.

The side event discussed new green growth challenges and priorities linked to the SDGs relevant to UNEP’s environmental mandate, which include economic growth, jobs, sustainable consumption and production, resource efficiency. Business speakers highlighted the necessary enabling frameworks in trade, investment and innovation that must be reflected in the SDGs to support private sector contributions to economic and environmental progress.

The GED project is now focused on the “green economy” and “green growth” aspects of the U.N.’s Post 2015 Development Agenda and related UNEP and OECD efforts. GED is a project under the auspices of the U.S. Council Foundation that was launched to inform the Rio+20 policy debate. GED developed information, tools and a platform for business to engage with national governments, thought leaders, academics and others on the way to Rio+20. These included Dialogue events in Washington, Paris, Beijing, Tokyo and Brasilia, and a set of peer-reviewed papers published in Energy Economics that provided academic Green Perspectives on many business-relevant issues.

Speakers at the GED event included:

Simon Darlington, President, East Africa, Alstom

Charles Arden Clarke, U.N. Environment Program 10 Year Framework of Programs on Sustainable Consumption and Production

Helen Marquard, executive director, the SEED Initiative

Weru Macharia, Kenyan representative, IOE

Brian P. Flannery, Chair, International Business Green Economies Dialogue

Staff Contact: Norine Kennedy

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FAO Engages Private Sector in Run-Up to International Nutrition Conference

Published on June 25, 2014

Malnutrition affects over half the global population, undermining growth and perpetuating poverty. Fighting malnutrition continues to be a high priority on the international agenda, and the Second International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) this November in Rome will set the stage for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s call for global action on nutrition.

In the lead-up to ICN2, a broad and diverse delegation of private sector representatives participated in a global debate on nutrition on June 20 with UN member countries in Rome, where the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is headquartered.

“We, as our civil society colleagues have indicated, want to underscore the importance of making non-state actors, such as the private sector and civil society, a full partner in the preparation for, and attendance at the ICN2,” wrote JB Cordaro, chairman of the International Agri-Food Network, who delivered a statement with input from several food and agriculture private-sector organizations at the meeting.

The FAO Director General, Graziano da Silva, welcomed the private sector’s input and noted that “the participation of non-state actors is critical for the success of any development process.” Business representatives will have an opportunity to make statements to governments at the ICN2 in November.

The June 20 meeting was a success, with governments supporting business’s role in the lead-up to the November conference, and it marks the first time the FAO actively engaged with the private sector apart from online consultations, according to Helen Medina, USCIB’s senior director for product policy and innovation.

Following on this meeting’s success, the private sector has been offered the opportunity to present at a similar event at the World Health Organization in Geneva on July 15.

Staff contact: Helen Medina

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ICC Unveils 2014 Intellectual Property Roadmap

Published on June 25, 2014

The International Chamber of Commerce released its 12^th edition of the Intellectual Property Roadmap: Current and Emerging Issues for Business and Policymakers, a report that explains how businesses use intellectual property as an asset that can be used to create value.

The report covers developments with an impact on IP protection as well as creating value from IP, obtaining IP assets, enforcing IP rights and the interaction between IP and other policy areas. There are several new topics, including IP management and licensing, patent quality, harmonization and streamlining of trademark rules, trademark restrictions on packaging, non-traditional marks and innovation.

“The swift pace of change in information and other technologies, and the trend towards more collaboration in innovation, are having a big effect on how IP is used, licensed and protected,” said David Koris, chair of the ICC Commission on Intellectual Property and global head of IP at Shell. “The emergence of new Internet applications and platforms, the increasing use of mobile devices, ever-increasing bandwidth and changing consumer behaviour are making IP owners reconsider how they distribute, commercialize and control their intellectual assets in the electronic environment.”

USCIB is ICC’s American affiliate. Our IP priorities include compulsory licensing, fighting counterfeiting and piracy in global supply chains, and the role IP plays in facilitating technology transfer from country to country, particularly with regard to green technologies.

Staff contact: Helen Medina

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Multistakeholder Internet Governance Model Lauded at OECD

Published on June 23, 2014

Coming on the heels of the stock-taking meeting of the World Summit of the Information Society earlier this month, The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Committee on Digital Economy Policy (CDEP) met last week in Paris to review policies affecting the development and use of information and communications technologies (ICTs). The committee held several sessions on the OECD Internet Policy Principles, the planned 2016 OECD Ministerial, revisions of the OECD Internet Security Guidelines and other issues relating to Internet governance.

USCIB is the American affiliate of the Business and Industry Advisory Council
to the OECD, which supports a multistakeholder model for Internet governance that upholds freedoms of information and expression, as opposed to a framework that would allow for unnecessary government intrusion and censorship.

USCIB’s Vice President for ICT policy, Barbara Wanner, reports that the CDEP meetings from June 16 to 20 focused on the relevance of the OECD’s 2011 Internet Policy Principles given current international developments in Internet governance. In addition, representatives from at least 30 OECD member states as well as the EU, BIAC, the Industrial Technology and Assistance Corporation, and Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council of the OECD forged a new path to revise the 2002 Security Guidelines, discussed plans for the ministerial, and determined work-streams that will support ministerial preparations.

High-Level Session on Internet Policy Principles

A special high-level session on the OECD’s Internet Policy Principles (IPP) featured senior government officials from the United States, Germany, Brazil, the UK, Sweden, and Korea, all of whom extolled the value of the IPP as providing a stable framework to use in addressing Internet governance issues in various domestic and global forums. The IPP promote the global free flow of information and seek to ensure an open and interconnected Internet.

Virgilio Almeida, Brazil’s secretary of information technology policies and chair of NETMundial pointed out that proponents of the multistakeholder model need to develop a compelling narrative for global Internet governance. This will help to broaden support among developing countries for a bottom-up approach to governance aimed at keeping the Internet open, stable, and resilient. In this regard, Almeida said the need for such a narrative presents the OECD with a unique opportunity to tap its core competence in evidence-based research. The OECD should undertake economic analysis that highlights the economic and developmental benefits that can be realized through access to the Internet, Almeida urged.

A related theme in several speakers’ remarks concerned the importance of institutional capacity building aimed at enabling more developing countries to understand and implement an IPP-based approach to Internet Governance. Olof Ehrenkrona, senior advisor to the Swedish minister for foreign affairs, observed that “those of us who believe yesterday is better than today will never prevail tomorrow.” He cautioned that while the IPPs have “become main-stream” in only three years, there still are countries – he called out Russia, in particular – that are considering legislation that will open the door to censorship and other principles and practices antithetical to the OECD Principles. OECD members therefore need to do a better job of engaging developing countries and help them to understand the economic, developmental, and societal benefits of maintaining an open Internet.

2016 Ministerial

The three day conference, which will be along the lines of the OECD’s 2008 Seoul Ministerial on the “Future of the Internet Economy,” will be held in either late April or mid-May 2016 in Cancun, Mexico. It will be preceded by one-day parallel forums for stakeholders including BIAC. The proposed theme for the ministerial is “Digital Innovation Transforming Societies.”

BIAC urged that non-government stakeholders participate on the special steering group that will formed to plan to Ministerial.

Revision of the 2002 OECD Internet Security Guidelines

During a special drafting session on June 17, USCIB members who participated in the BIAC delegation made important contributions aimed at clarifying conceptual elements, improving definitions of key terms and addressing potential ambiguities in the second draft of the revised Security Guidelines. Earlier in the year, USCIB had submitted a number of substantive comments and editorial changes to the first draft. Key points of the June 17 discussion included:

The Guidelines should apply to both the government and the business. BIAC noted that, unlike the earlier version, the second draft offers a less “top-down” approach to the development and implementation of frameworks for managing risk in a digital ecosystem.
More work is needed to clarify scope and definitions.
A new principle on international cooperation is warranted, with greater emphasis on public-private cooperation, particularly in the development of strategies for managing risk in a digital economy.
The term “participants” should be replaced with “stakeholders.” BIAC clarified that “stakeholders” include a range of people providing inputs “as appropriate to their role.”

OECD members will consider at least three more drafts and hold a second, in-person drafting session sometime in October with the goal of sending a final version to the CDEP for approval in December 2014. USCIB, through BIAC, will utilize these additional opportunities to help further improve and refine the revised Guidelines.

Staff contact: Barbara Wanner

More on USCIB’s Information and Communications Technology Committee

Honoring Ed Potter at the IOE Leaders Summit

Published on June 20, 2014

Ed Potter (Coca-Cola) addressed the ILO Conference in Geneva on June 10.

The 103rd International Labor Conference wrapped up last week in Geneva, concluding the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) high-level deliberations that brought together government delegates from the organization’s 185 member states, representatives from workers’ organizations and employers’ organizations to discuss a wide range of employment and workforce development issues.

During the International Organization of Employers (IOE) Leaders’ Summit, the Employers’ Group paid tribute to Ed Potter, the employers’ spokesperson, thanking him for his many years of expertise and service to the employer cause at the International Labor Conference.

Potter serves chairs USCIB’s Labor and Employment Committee and is the director of global workplace rights at The Coca-Cola Company. After three decades of championing business at the ILO Conference, Potter will retire next year. His work in this year’s discussion on forced labor was described as “masterful.”

At the proposal of Peter Woolford of the Canadian Employers’ Council, Potter received a standing ovation from the Employers’ Group at the IOE Leaders’ Summit for his many years of dedication, expertise and service. Looking back at 1980, when Potter’s ILO Conference career kicked off, Woolford reminisced that the Berlin Wall still stood, Lech Walesa was making waves in Poland, two guys were working in a garage in California on something that would become a fruit-branded personal computer, and Swedish pop band Abba was at the top of the charts; appropriately with “Super Trouper.”

USCIB held a dinner on June 11 in Geneva at the Cercle de la Terasse, hosted by USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson, in honor of both Potter and USCIB Senior Counsel Ronnie Goldberg, who had been reelected as U.S. member of the ILO Governing Body. Robinson and USCIB Vice President for Labor Affairs Ariel Meyerstein toasted Potter and Goldberg “for their decades of service representing business and employers, working in tripartite partnership to promote economic growth, job creation and social development.”

Guests included ILO Director General Guy Ryder, IOE Secretary General Brent Wilton, IOE Chairman Daniel Funes de Rioja, and other colleagues from the government, business, and trade union communities.

Read the IOE’s Report on the 103^rd International Labor Conference.

Staff contacts: Ronnie Goldberg and Ariel Meyerstein

More on USCIB’s Labor & Employment Committee

Trade Facilitation Off to Good Start Says WCO Director

Published on June 20, 2014

Speaking to over 40 members of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Commission on Customs and Trade Facilitation last week, World Customs Organization (WCO) Director of Compliance and Facilitation, Gaozhang Zhu said he was optimistic about the implementation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade Facilitation adopted at the WTO’s Ninth Ministerial Conference in Bali at the end of 2013.

USCIB’s Kristin Isabelli attended last week’s meetings and reported on the Global Trade Facilitation Agreement Coalition – a partnership between USCIB, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Foreign Trade Council and the Express Association of America – in helping to move the agreement forward.

On behalf of its global network reaching 6.5 million companies worldwide, ICC was steadfast in its campaign to push for improvements in trade facilitation which, according to an ICC report, could boost the world economy by $1 trillion annually and result in job gains of 21 million.

“Because most articles of the WTO’s Agreement on Trade Facilitation will be implemented by Customs agencies, the WCO is well-positioned to drive the trade facilitation agenda,” Zhu said. “The aim is to secure a resilient supply chain. We are off to a good start but the hard work is just beginning.”

Global Trade Set to Benefit From ICC Trade Register Report

Published on June 19, 2014

It has long been anecdotally known that trade finance is a low risk for lenders. That claim now has a wealth of data to back it up. Today the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) released its 2014 Trade Register Report, providing overwhelming evidence that trade and export finance – in all its forms – is a low risk bank financing technique.

The report supports ICC’s and USCIB’s advocacy of trade finance as a strong contribution to economic recovery and growth. Its findings hold the potential to alter attitudes towards trade finance, and therefore contribute to the growth of both global trade and the global economy.

The Trade Register also highlights a concern about the effect overly-stringent money laundering regulations have on trade finance flows. Strict regulations have damaged access of some firms to trade and export finance services.

“The intention of the Register was to progress the understanding of trade finance, its importance to global trade and its highly-effective risk mitigation capabilities,” explained Kah Chye Tan, Chair of ICC Banking Commission. “The impact of the Register, however, is much greater. As the latest results show, the Register provides concrete fact-based evidence that trade finance is low risk which, if fully reflected in capital requirements, would help banks to give companies the financing support they need for their exports, and to contribute even further to the global economy as it recovers from the global financial crisis.”

The report’s findings may help policymakers understand the negative consequences such laws have on export finance, which is crucial for economic growth in the developing world.

First launched in 2009 by ICC’s Banking Commission, the report is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading analytical reports on global risks for the trade finance industry—identifying risks across a range of trade finance products and markets.

Summit Calls for United Effort to Address IP Abuses

Published on June 17, 2014

More than 300 government and business leaders gathered in London last week to press for stronger intellectual property (IP) enforcement measures around the world. The International IP Enforcement Summit was hosted by the United Kingdom IP Organization, European Commission, the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market and the EU Observatory on Infringements of IP.

“The support and involvement of the leaders of these key government organizations is a clear demonstration that enforcement of IP rights is a critical public policy issue,” said Jeff Hardy, director of the International Chamber of Commerce’s Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy (BASCAP) initiative.

“We are eager to work with these officials to follow up on discussions from the conference to implement ever stronger policy, legislative and enforcement measures to stop IP theft,” Hardy said.

Business leaders from BASCAP made significant contributions to the summit discourse, including presentations from Hewlett Packard, Lacoste, Microsoft and Unilever on issues ranging from limiting piracy on the Internet and cracking down on border control to improving consumer awareness.