Voices for Change: the Consumer Right to Representation

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36 World Consumer Rights Day 2002: Voices for Change present a completely false stance in a meeting. It can be very useful to criticise the government publicly at home for their representations abroad, or to go public with criticism while the meeting is still on. Immediate feedback mechanisms like these are a good way for those of us involved in CI campaigns and representations to keep on top of the events as they occur and feel that we’re almost part of the deliberations. Over the past five years, CI has deliberately inserted itself into strategic decision-making settings. Food and trade are our global priorities. Food was chosen because of the large interest and working base of many of our members – it’s always good to have solid interest and expertise on the ground – and the Codex Alimentarius has been the focus of this work. Trade was selected because everybody believed that the WTO and trade decisions would drive a great deal of the world’s power arrangements over the next decades. That prediction is certainly true. How are we succeeding as a global movement in creating the powerful global consumer representative voice? We’ve improved, and we’re learning fast. But we’ve still got a long way to go. When all the major decisionmaking bodies and our governments know that to exclude the consumer movement is not only not right but will undermine their credibility, when the right to representation is written in concrete terms into their procedures, and when international bodies and government representatives really believe that better public policy results from a process of inclusion of the consumer voice rather than its exclusion, then we’ll know we’re well on the way to serving consumers the way that we should be. – Louise Sylvan Codex: Long-term strategy to turn input into influence The Codex Alimentarius Commission is the UN body that sets the international food standards used throughout the world as a basis for national standards and to facilitate trade in foodstuffs. CI’s three-year Codex programme seeks to enhance consumer influence at national and regional levels by working through regional networks, empowering member organisations (through training and support) and promoting international representation. According to its mid-term review, conducted in 2000, the Codex project has been “fairly successful in implementing activities that have resulted in greater consumer input in Codex decisions, especially in the areas of food labelling, food hygiene and risk analysis. But this has not translated into expected influence on Codex decisions.”Participation in Codex is far from satisfactory, the evaluation states. Few member organisations are consulted by their governments, and access to Codex documents remains unsatisfactory. Although progress has been slow, some advances gains have been made and the project has helped increase the involvement of members in policy-making. In contrast, the project has increased the capacity of members at the national level and some consumer organisations have made good progress in influencing their governments on Codex issues. Many members now have a good understanding of the Codex process. A wide range of activities has promoted the importance of Codex at the national level. Well-researched and wellproduced written materials have supported campaigns. Urgent issues like GM foods have been tackled in a comprehensive and sustained manner. A significant number of CI members have had the opportunity to participate personally in a Codex meeting at the regional or international level. The project has carried out many activities to increase recognition by national governments of the need to get input from consumer organisations. These activities have increased the skills of member organisations to work with National Codex Committees, which has elevated their status in the eyes of government officials involved in food standard issues. While the obstacles vary from region to region, the common constraints to sustainable work in Codex include lack of finances and expertise, apathy of government, opposition
World Consumer Rights Day 2002: Voices for Change of industrial and commercial interests, and biases against NGOs. However CI has made well-recognised efforts to support the Codex Secretariat in developing mechanisms for increasing consumer involvement in Codex and in monitoring implementation of these mechanisms. Among the lessons learned are those that “future project(s) should be wider than Codex and deal with food safety issues more generally,” the evaluation concludes. “ [They] should still include the international representation work of CI at Codex, but this should be part of a broader project dealing with food safety more holistically.” Trade: Changing Mechanisms Markets have been the stage for consumer protection laws since the Hammurabi Code decreed trial by ordeal for dishonest wine sellers some 4000 years ago. Today, consumers seek protection from global markets by seeking their say in international institutions created to dictate contemporary rules of play. The difficulties of building CI representation in an area like international trade where consumer groups have not traditionally worked are three-fold, according to CI’s Global Programmes Manager, Jayanti Durai. First, consumers are generally unaware of the implications of trade rules on their lives. Second, consumer organisations often do not feel comfortable in engaging in these issues, as they aren’t used to discussing trade and economics issues. Third, policy-makers may not think that consumer organisations have anything to say or that what they say is credible. Most consumer work is based on bringing research to light to support a particular point. In trade work, consumer representatives are expected to be lawyers or economists, or both. Consumer organisations are nonetheless growing more aware of trade and are beginning to be able to assess its impact. The main difficulty consumer representatives now face is that governments appear to think everyone (trade unions, environment, etc.) is more important than those who trade is destined for – consumers. CI’s trade programme has tried to enlist the media as one way of getting our views heard. This paves the way for getting governments to accept the consumers’ point of view as credible. There are also multiple difficulties in building representation at forums where no mechanisms exist for NGO, or consumer, input. Without formal mechanisms for discussion with decision-makers, the consumer representative has to traipse around after each decision-maker attempting to be heard. Lack of formal mechanisms means no access to the agenda, which presents many drawbacks: consumer representatives don’t know when issues are being discussed, have no idea of the tone or tenor of discussion to be able to respond appropriately and can’t transmit information back to the national level. This makes it complicated to contribute content-wise. In the end, those who have influence in this kind of system are those who are based in Geneva and can “hang out” with delegations. Not many NGOs have this opportunity, notes Durai. CI’s structure as a confederation of member groups, each with disparate and sometimes conflicting interests, is another factor to consider in exercising representation in international trade forums and issues. Obviously, trade has benefited some countries more than others. Given the varying experiences in trade, building a common position is difficult. But if we are clear as to our values – consumer rights – and our priorities – the most vulnerable – it is possible to agree on what we need to say, she writes. The more research CI conducts and the more all its members engage, the easier it becomes to explore and discuss differences and to come up with common positions. CI can point to some successes in our representation work. Consumers are now regularly on government delegations to WTO, as is the case of the EU and Uganda. And in October, “CI wrote a little bit of WTO history,” reports Durai. For the first time, the WTO 37
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