Voices for Change: the Consumer Right to Representation

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14 World Consumer Rights Day 2002: Voices for Change to serve the interests of global corporations. Global and regional agreements and financial policies promote business interests over consumer, environmental and labour interests. We’ve seen this in WTO agreements and financial institutions, like the World Bank and the IMF, that dictate financial arrangements to developing countries. We hear more discussion, and more open discussion, of the negative outcomes of such globalisation. In these discussions, civil society organisations can help define the course globalisation must take to protect and advance the interests of our constituencies. Even without the money and power of business interests, we have the capacity to speak out and be heard by the public. Critics of globalisation have drawn “tacit” support from a broad range of public opinion, as The Economist noted, and “have been, and are likely to remain, politically influential.” CI has helped in this effort by advancing thoughtful and cogent criticisms, and advocating policies in the consumer interest. Decision-making at the global level that heeds only the voice of business must become a thing of the past, because consumers are deeply affected by the outcomes. The consumer movement must become one of the shapers of future globalisation decisions. Representation Strategies To reach this goal, we must assess how our advocacy can best fit in this changed global landscape. We must look at our representation objectives and strategies in this era of growing civil society participation and protests. • With hundreds of civil society organisations now addressing consumer issues, how can we be most effective? • What sort of networks and coalitions should we seek to create or participate in? • How do we add to our strengths as a confederation of diverse consumer organisations? CI’s 16th World Congress Statement refers to working with other public interest groups to achieve social and economic justice, because we are all citizens and we are all consumers. Surely, working alone is out of step with the times and unrealistic. Corporations join together to achieve common ends, as we see at every turn. Their national and global organisations reflect their vast economic power and greatly influence global bodies and national governments. Consumer groups, too, must identify our common interests with related organisations, establish good working relationships, and form common agendas and common programmes. Back in the 1980s, CI helped form several networks – some of which continue to this day. We need to re-evaluate this strategy for broad-based representation and explore the relationships and cooperative efforts that could increase our effectiveness. Consumer issues are also on the agendas of many organisations that address related areas. These include organisations that campaign on development, environmental, health, privatisation and labour issues. With so many organisations now engaged in issues similar to CI’s issues, we must explore ways to combine our strengths with those of other organisations. This is a good moment to be pursuing common grounds. All over the world, alliances are developed in varying ways. CI member organisations have vast experience at alliance-building at the local and national levels. CI can break new ground globally, as is occurring under the aegis of the TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD). In this forum, diverse members of CI work collegially together while preserving their unique cultures, qualities and operating principles. Legitimacy and Accountability The events in Seattle and Prague were traumatic for governments and global business. Some, like The Economist magazine, have responded by describing the protesting groups as “unaccountable, unelected and very often unrepresentative.” Others, like the Shell Corporation (cited in a Financial Times supplement in 2000), talk of a backlash that questions the legitimacy of these organisations in the global debate. This backlash targets not
World Consumer Rights Day 2002: Voices for Change only the loud protesting groups, but also the quieter lobbying groups – in addition to the global institutions that have now opened doors to hold dialogues with them. The question of accountability is a far-reaching one. We must ask it of governments and of corporations. And we must demand it of ourselves, as members of civil society and as consumer representatives. • It seems simple to state that governments and their agencies are accountable to the public because their citizens vote. But real accountability requires that these officials work in the best interests of their citizens. Can they be called accountable when they agree to a system that puts the profits of trade ahead of concerns for health, the environment, consumer protections, or labour conditions? Can governments be called accountable when they agree to the onerous and intolerable conditions imposed on consumers in developing countries by structural adjustments by the lending institutions? • The biggest promoters of the global trading system as it exists today are the corporations that benefit from it financially. To whom are they accountable? They should be accountable to the broad interests of consumers, of citizens, of communities. But they believe they are accountable only to their shareholders and to their bottom line. They believe they exist only in order to make profits. Most corporations, left to themselves, would not worry about pollution or global warming or labelling of genetically modified foods. Or about hunger or health care. Milton Friedman has told the world that it would be wrong for corporations to consider anything but profits, and that’s a well-held belief by business. • Should civil society organisations be held accountable in some way? Yes, if they are performing services for a discreet constituency. A relief organisation, for example, is accountable for the funds it receives and disburses. For an educational or medical institution, consumers want a certification system and structure that enables us to view the outcomes. If the organisation wants special status, at the UN, for example, some system of establishing credentials is reasonable. How are consumer groups accountable? We are accountable to the consumer movement and to each other, to protect and promote our causes, our integrity, and our persuasiveness. We are accountable to our subscibers and members, but how can we increase our accountability to individual consumers? When civil society organisations express their views – whether in the streets or more quietly within the halls of power – they are showing accountability to the process of democratic decision-making. There can be no political democracy without the participation of civil society. They make a significant contribution to defining, protecting and advancing the essential values of a democratic, humanistic society and the essential rights of the world’s citizens. Citizen action has advanced the grand march toward political democracy, toward liberty and toward equality in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. If an activist civil society didn’t exist, governments would serve only business, and political democracy would waste away or be destroyed before our eyes. Recently, we saw the dramatic contributions civil society organisations made in the fight to secure access to drugs for AIDS victims in South Africa. Civil society groups were pitted against the power of the global pharmaceutical companies, power that can be even greater than the governments of some developing countries. But citizen organisations, using their expertise, Internet networking and public information skills, and their implacable dedication to the public interest, prevailed in remarkable ways. When the 39 pharmaceutical companies withdrew their infamous lawsuit against the government of South Africa relating to AIDS drugs, it was widely heralded as a victory for world public opinion. That victory was the result of activism by civil society organisations in the forefront of the fight for public health. Consumers International today is wellpositioned to build on the new strengths of civil society. We have spoken forcefully and 15
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Voices for Change: the Consumer Right to Representation

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