The Human Rights Council wrapped up Twentieth Session with a first-ever resolution on human rights and the internet, sponsored by Sweden and some 80 other countries.  The resolution affirms that human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the freedom of expression, are as relevant online as they are off line and that governments have a duty to protect these rights.  The resolution also recognizes the “global and open nature of the Internet as a driving force in accelerating progress towards development” and calls on States to promote and facilitate access and availability of communications facilities in all countries.  See the resolution here.   In support of the resolution, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton specifically mentioned freedom of religion or belief, freedom of assembly and association and the right to be free of arbitrary interference with privacy.    See her statement here.

Another interesting development at the Human Rights Council last week was the announcement of the appointment of the first independent expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to the enjoyment of a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment.  Out of nineteen candidates, the Council approved the appointment of Professor John Knox, who teaches international law at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA.  Professor Knox has published widely on climate change and human rights and on the application of the Ruggie principles to corporations.  See his application and resume here.

This article originally appeared in the 9 July 2012 CMBD News

New thinking on trade policy is quietly emerging to influence the contours of the global economy of the twenty-first century.  We were struck by the richness of the ideas at a recent UNCTAD XIII “pre-event” on 26 to 27 March in Geneva, even as UNCTAD prepares for its thirteenth quadrennial conference in Doha, Qatar the week after next, from 21 to 26 April.   There may not be the same level of intensity and turnout as we are seeing in connection with the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development, but we sense that there is some significant momentum underway here in the preparatory events leading up to UNCTAD XIII.   We have already reported on the priorities for inclusive and sustainable growth and development at UNCTAD XIII when we met with Secretary-General Supachai Panitchpakdi on 23 February, followed by the formal consultations  with civil society and the private sector that were held on 7 March and on climate change reporting on 16 March.  In late March, a two-day seminar was held on “Redefining the Role of the Government in Tomorrow’s International Trade”.  See the concept paper, programme and presentations here.

The programme included a presentation from the recent World Trade Initiative launched by the International Chamber of Commerce on 13 to 14 March, and numerous other experts joined in with reflections on the new landscape for inclusive growth.  Trade in tasks in contrast to trade in finished goods was highlighted, as one would expect, and panelists even noted that it was time to simply declare a victory for the Doha Round and move on.  Perhaps what was most striking was the theme that trade policy needs to reach beyond traditional trade instruments to deal with regulatory policies that may be beyond the capacity of trade policy makers to address.  Food safety, environment, competition and labour policies were all cited as the kinds of non-tariff measures that are increasingly relevant for trade liberalization in the 21st century.  Certainly, these developments are symptomatic of the rebalancing of market and government that Dr. Supachai described as a priority when we met with him in February.  Related to this, the diversity of these regulatory measures suggests the need to include key stakeholders from human rights, environment, industrial policy and the like in future trade negotiations.   For developing countries, furthermore, trade will need to be integrated into the new productive and growth agenda, along with foreign direct investment oriented to moving up the value chain and entrepreneurship to foster sustained and inclusive development.   Finally, active government policy for export diversification needs to include attention to skills and education, as well as infrastructure and research.  We will monitor how this new thinking on trade will be defined in the UNCTAD XIII events and outcomes, including the parallel World Investment Forum on 20 to 23 April.

The preparations for the Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development (to be held on 20 to 22 June 2012) have some disparate messages about the social and economic pillars to complement the environmental pillar.  We hear a lot of talk, of course, that sustainable development needs to balance these three pillars, but we are aware that the main preparations for the Rio+20 Summit are nonetheless in the hands of the environmental decision-makers who don’t necessarily have the networks or mandates to integrate the economic and social perspectives.  The UN Development Programme’s Human Development Report Office sought to correct this with a special Global Human Development Forum last week, with the UNDP Bureau of Development Policy and the Turkish Ministry of Development and an “Istanbul Declaration” that asserts the linkages between global social inequities and environmental deterioration.  See the Declaration here. The 200 or so invited experts to this Forum were in agreement that social inclusion, social protection and equity need to be priorities at the Rio+20 Summit, “in recognition of the fact that economic development has too often gone hand in hand with environmental degradation and increasing inequalities”.  The implication is that both social and economic inequalities within and among nations are aggravating environmental risks and degradation, and vice versa.  This also seems to be the thrust of the message coming from various NGOs organizing side events in New York during the preparatory process for a parallel “People’s Summit for Social and Environmental Justice” during the Rio+20 Summit.

Somehow this doesn’t quite get at the economic pillar other than to condemn economic development as something that has contributed to both environmental degradation and social inequalities.  While there are understandable global concerns about the phenomenon of growing social inequalities and also about the need to develop sustainable environmental policies to combat climate change, declining biodiversity, water scarcity, etc., the absence of any separate attention in these deliberations to a sustainable economic pillar as such is rather disconcerting.   We do know, of course, that the business community is being encouraged to participate in its own “Corporate Sustainability Forum” on 15 to 18 June in Rio, but even the UN Secretary-General has acknowledged that the “principles of sustainability” have yet to penetrate business strategy and those that are engaged in practicing corporate sustainability are a small percentage of the world’s enterprises.  See his remarks here.  It is encouraging that governments are proposing in the “zero draft” for the Summit that both public and private sources are needed for financing sustainable development and that there needs to be a central role for the private sector.  See excellent reporting by the IISD Reporting Services on these negotiations and related side events here.  And the Business Action for Sustainable Development is co-hosting with four diplomatic missions (Benin, Barbados, Netherlands and Vietnam) a lunchtime discussion on 26 March at the UN in New York to promote a dialogue between business and governments.    But more seems to be needed on putting some meaning to the economic pillar – and finding ways for all of these groups to interact with each other rather than having their own separate forums.

We have been following the right to food, human rights and the environment and good governance at the most recent session of the Human Rights Council, the first of three regular sessions per year.  This is the session that features the high-level segment for foreign affairs ministers to lay out their human rights priorities, and we recognize that the political and civil human rights issues are the ones that get the most diplomatic attention.  A commission of inquiry on Syria has dominated the deliberations, to be sure.  On the other hand, we also think it is important to appreciate how the economic, social and cultural aspects of human rights are influencing policy debates in the Human Rights Council.  While it is true that respecting all human rights is a fundamental tenet of the Council’s approach to business and human rights, the economic, social and cultural aspects of human rights are where business has been more frequently in the limelight.   Our main interest during this session has been on the implications for business of the Council’s approach to the right to food, but we have also been interested in the environmental and good governance debates.

Two issues are worthy of note regarding the latest policy considerations at the Human Rights Council on the right to food.  First, the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, had included considerable detail in his annual report to the Council on the implications of the risk factors associated with non-communicable diseases to the right to food.  That is to say, the linkages between under-nutrition of infants and children and later problems with obesity have been well established in the campaign to mobilize awareness about the risk factors and their impact on chronic diseases like diabetes, heart and respiratory diseases.   So the resolution to approve continued involvement of the Council on the right to food has included references to the right to food and nutrition security since it isn’t just access to food that is implied here.  The high-calorie content of cheap foods would suggest the need to deliver nutrition security as well as just food security.  The second issue is whether to associate the “current distortions in the agricultural trading system” as blocking the ability of poor farmers and producers to compete and sell their products and thereby restricting the realization of the right to adequate food by these same producers and farmers.  Beyond these issues, the resolution is fairly balanced and requests all States, private actors and international organizations (within their mandates) to “take fully into account the need to promote the effective realization of the right to food for all”.  It encourages cooperation with the Working Group on Human Rights and Business on the contribution of the private sector to food, “including the importance of ensuring sustainable water resources for human consumption and agriculture”.  See the draft resolution here.

We note two other resolutions of interest.  As we had reported two weeks ago, the Human Rights Council had requested a special workshop in the relationship between human rights and the environment, and we reported that the workshop included discussion of a proposal to establish a “special rapporteur” on this matter.  There is now a resolution to create an “independent expert” on the right to a “safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment”.  We see this as contributing to the momentum to infuse a human rights perspective in the Rio+20 Summit.  A final resolution of note has to do with promoting good governance, and this one emphasizes the importance of combating corruption and promoting the UN Convention on Corruption.  There are others, of course – on minority rights, on the right to development and economic, social and cultural rights generally – but we think these three on the right to food, on environment and on governance are especially pertinent for CMBD News readers.

We had the benefit of a Geneva launch event of the final report on Resilient People, Resilient Planet from the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability on Monday, 6 February 2012 in the Palais des Nations. An impressive panel included Micheline Calmy-Rey, the former President of the Swiss Confederation and a member of the High-level Panel, who was joined at this launch event by Michel Jarraud, the head of the World Meteorological Organization; Juan Somavia, the head of the International Labour Organization; and several others as we note below. We were impressed with the emphasis on realistic and “doable” objectives that came from this unique panel of global political leaders, who were mandated to work together in their individual capacities rather than as official policy-makers.   As Director-General Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, the head of the UN here in Geneva observed at the opening of the panel discussion, the Secretary-General has already accepted some of the recommendations, especially as they apply to measuring the global progress of sustainable development goals (SDGs).  We can look to the Panel’s report as a pragmatic guide for action by the global community throughout the UN system but also through an enlightened view of engagement by civil society, the scientific community and the private sector.

Ms. Calmy-Rey highlighted the priority areas in the report as first and foremost a commitment to social justice and the fight against poverty, to be achieved by changing how we measure a sustainable economy by integrating the social and environmental costs into the calculation of the price structure and by improving the framework for good governance.  The new approach to the measurement of economic performance is likely to stand as the central thrust of the report’s recommendations, but we note that the proposed governance reforms were also both innovative and achievable.  This latter priority area included recommendations for a sustainable development council in partnership with the private sector and civil society, strengthening the UN Environment Programme to increase coherence and synergies among the 500 plus multilateral environmental agreements and a periodic global report and high-level segment at the UN on progress.  Ms. Calmy-Rey emphasized that active follow-up is now needed and that the Rio+20 Summit is a significant  opportunity for governments, international organizations, civil society, the scientific community and the private sector to participate and take action.

The other panelists at the Geneva launch event included an excellent spokesperson from the Swiss cooperative and retail giant Migros — Claude Hauser, chairman of the nationwide Migros Federation; and two major NGO leaders, Mark Halle from the International Institute for Sustainable Development and James Leape from the WWF International.  Mr. Hauser commended the ambitious expectations in the report and described the two hats of Migros as a cooperative organization in the world of distribution where it is well positioned to implement changes to support sustainability and inform consumers, but also of Migros as a member of the food industry association where changes are being initiated in response to a growing awareness of integrating sustainability into retail practices.  Mr. Halle reflected on the difficulty of achieving sustainable development, which was a goal in the Brundtland Report and the first Rio Summit, and yet here we are 20 years later and still talking about the goal.  Nonetheless, he observed that important advances have been made toward what we think about sustainable development, and the report provides an independent high-level voice addressing the shift away from talking about the impact of sustainable development on economic growth to talking about how we organize and design economic activity with a sustainable development focus. The report is symbolic of a turning point in this respect. Furthermore, the report shows the potential of mobilizing private capital for sustainable development, although he also argued that public policy must play a better role in providing consistent incentives for this to happen. Mr. Leape observed that the Secretary-General had gambled by appointing sitting government officials to the High-Level Panel, albeit in their individual capacity, but the payoff is greater realism in the recommendations. They bring the social, economic and environmental pillars together with doable targets for the food and energy needs of the people, they show the value of getting the prices right by eliminating subsidies and integrating sustainability into the mainstream of the economy, and they open up opportunities for all of us to be “pioneers”.

While the participants raised questions about follow-up, Ms. Calmy-Rey concluded by observing that the recommendations are a call to action. The Rio+20 Summit is one channel for this, but this is also the opportune time for  input into the “post-2015 Millennium Development Goals”.  Another channel noted by participants at this event is the human rights channel, and Ambassador Laura Dupuy Lasserre of Uruguay, the current President of the Human Rights Council announced from the floor that the Council would be convening a mainstreaming panel on development and cooperation for 28 February and will also be looking at integrating this new thinking about sustainable development into the Universal Periodic Review Mechanism of the Human Rights Council.  The report of this High-level Panel on Sustainable Development may indeed be a stimulus for action.

President Calderón of Mexico and the Mexican Business Community have set the stage for the Los Cabos G20 Leaders Summit and a Business Role. The President presented the case at the World Economic Forum in Davos for Mexican leadership of the G20 in 2012, aiming primarily at Mexican insights into crisis management for dealing with the Euro Zone crisis. We are impressed with how well thought out this message is, since our Geneva colleague and friend Ambassador Juan José Gomez Comácho had shared a similar message about the success of Mexico’s recovery from its financial crisis of 1995, when he met with the CMBD in December. What the President was saying at Davos was that the Euro Zone crisis was an immediate issue requiring G20 attention and support but that dramatic and rapid increases in lending capacity and availability by the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund had to be a part of the solution. In this, he was delivering the same message as Christine Lagarde, the Managing Director of the IMF. Going beyond this specific message, however, President Calderón also had some uniquely Mexican priorities to highlight for the G20. He wants to feature sustainability paths for social justice and respect for the environment. Financial inclusion for the sake of social justice is a concept that has been applied in Mexico with over 6 million low income families now receiving conditional cash transfers through the “Opportunidades” program. Families must commit to sending their children to school and taking them to health clinics, with a resulting benefit of helping them escape poverty in a sustainable way, not just in a temporary payment.

The Mexican business community, including the WEF Co-Chair Alejandro Ramirez, CEO of Cinepolis, was part of a special session on the “G20 Reality Check”. Also in attendance was Lourdes Aranda Bezaury, the Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs and the G20 Sherpa of Mexico. The report of this session (available here) indicates that participants were concerned about the G20 losing its credibility. The G20 in Los Cabos will certainly have a narrower agenda than in Cannes, with a primary emphasis on tighter financial regulation, strengthening of the international financial institutions and reform of the financial system. But it will also have strong components on food security and green economic growth. The report also mentions that the B20 role will be streamlined, listing only issues of structural reform, trade finance and corruption. We shall see. One would expect quite an active B20 role once again on food security and agricultural development (as it had in Cannes), among other issues, but we should also note that the Rio+20 business gathering may overshadow the B20 because of the timing of the two main events one after the other. The Rio+20 Corporate Sustainability Forum, as we noted above, is scheduled to occur from 15 to 18 June, to be followed by the Rio+20 Summit itself on 20 to 22 June. And the Los Cabos G20 Leaders Summit is scheduled for 18 to 19 June.

Meeting in New York several weeks ago, the government delegations and “Major Group” representatives had their first go at the “Zero Draft” of the outcomes document for the Rio+20 Summit. As we have been reporting, the Rio+20 Summit has two main themes – a green economy for poverty eradication and sustainable development and the institutional framework for sustainable development. We note that the Business and Industry Group, represented by the coalition on Business Action for Sustainable Development, presented an upbeat intervention by the Chair of BASD Kris Gopalakrishnan as reported here. Business wants to see clear policies and regulatory frameworks, he said, and considered the Zero Draft to be a good beginning, inclusive of business interests. Others at the sessions on 25 to 26 January raised some of the specific proposals that may produce some clarity and framework for sustainable development in the future. Critics are urging more emphasis on the social and economic pillars, and the food/water/energy security nexus is certainly gaining momentum as the main focus for Rio+20. Various ideas about a new institutional framework include the upgrading of the UN Environment Programme, the formation of a Sustainable Development Council or a Scientific Advisory Group for the Secretary-General. Participants expressed the need for guidance on more options in this area. Proposals to be more participatory are also gaining ground. So there were amendments offered to the Preamble of the Zero Draft to include civil society and the Major Groups as well as governments in the formal negotiating processes, and there is even a proposal floating around to start the negotiations for a treaty on the “Rio Principle Ten”. This principle from the original Rio Declaration states that “Environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level”, and advocates of a binding convention want to see a legal framework for ensuring transparency, participation and accountability. As usual, the Institute for International Sustainable Development has provided an excellent summary of the New York meetings here.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has announced that the Rio+20 Summit is at the top of his agenda as the main event in 2012 for advancing “inclusive and sustainable development”. We started our new year of CMBD News with a summary of his announced priorities for his second term as UN Secretary-General. (See our 9 January 2012 issue for more.) The flurry of activity this past week in New York and even in Davos is but the beginning of a full calendar for mobilizing governments, civil society and the private sector to address “The Future We Want”. This is the title of the “Zero Draft” of the outcomes document for the Rio+20 Summit, available here, that was issued on 19 January and was the basis for a first inter-governmental discussion on 25 to 26 January in New York. On 30 January President Jacob Zuma, the co-chair of the Secretary-General’s Task Force on Global Sustainability, issued its final report at the African Union Summit in Addis Ababa. Entitled “Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing”, the report is available here. We attended a Geneva presentation of the report at which a 22-member panel presented 56 recommendations, including the integration of social and environmental costs in how the world prices and measures economic activities for a measure that goes beyond traditional GDP to include a number of “sustainable development indicators”. They also proposed “SDGs” to build on the “MDGs” or Millennium Development Goals that have galvanized global action on specific poverty reduction, health and education targets.

The week also featured a conference on 31 January in Paris on “Towards a New Global Governance of the Environment”. The French conference information is available here, showing broad support including from Medef, the French business association. Others were held in the US, in India, and numerous other locations. We noted that there would be an event on 14 to 16 February in New York on the Business Perspective on Sustainable Growth: Preparing for Rio (see the announcement here), but this seems to be only one of a plethora of events and channels for engagement that are springing up around the world. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, furthermore, has reaffirmed his determination to promote partnerships through a new Partnership Facility under the Global Compact. He also wants to transform the Global Compact Board to a Global Compact Partnership Board during the major business side event leading up to the Rio+20 Summit itself. This is being called the Rio+20 Corporate Sustainability Forum and has the overriding theme of “Innovation and Collaboration for the Future We Want”. It is scheduled to be held on 15 to 18 June with thematic breakout sessions on energy and climate, water and ecosystems, agriculture and food, social development, urbanization and cities and economics and finance for sustainable development. See here for more information. The Brazilian hosts have announced that they hope to see a larger turnout in Rio than there was for the record-breaking Copenhagen Climate Change Summit. Given the signs of a slow but accelerating build-up, we are starting to think that they might get their wish. This would be quite a contrast to the gloom-and-doom mentality of downward revisions in global economic forecasts and distress about the Euro zone crisis that have been dominating the headlines in recent weeks – and months!

We didn’t mention it in our environmental overview for 2012, which focused on the Rio+20 Summit in last week’s CMBD News, but we should take note that the momentum on environmental issues may have another event at the end of the year when “COP 18”on Climate Change meets in Doha, Qatar.  The extension of the Kyoto Protocol from expiry in 2012 to 2017, the establishment of a Green Climate Fund, and an agreement to work toward a new “protocol, legal instrument or agreed outcome with legal force” no later than 2015 may well have taken the wind out of the sails for the Qatar meeting, but delegates will still be called upon to adopt a new work plan for 2012 onwards with the aim of closing the “ambition gap” between countries’ pledges and the need to limit the actual rise in temperatures worldwide to no more than 2 degrees Celsius.  See the latest documents here.