On Indigenous Issues, World Bank Needs to Move to Consent, IMF Invisible, REDD in Question

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, May 28 -- Alongside the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the UN for the past week, there's been talk of the World Bank versus IMF as well as of the controversial Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation, REDD or REDD Plus, program.

  Inner City Press on May 28 put questions about these to a panel including Mexico's outgoing ambassador to the UN in New York, Luis Alfonso de Alba, Grand Chief Edward John and Joan Carling of the Asia Indigenous Peoples' Pact.Video here, from Minute 11:41.

  Luis Alfonso de Alba, who is soon to move to Vienna, replied that the outcome document of the 2014 World Conference on Indigenous Peoples will be "very general" but will aim to address the areas on which governments need to do better.

  Joan Carling said that REDD Plus is, in fact, popular in Cambodia. Inner City Press cited opposition in Panama. She said it varies from place to place, depending on how it impacts indigenous people. She said it should be up to them, and not to NGOs which claim to work with them, "imposes their ideological views."

  Chief Ed John went further, citing Keystone, tar sands, the Exxon Valdes, BP and the Gulf of Mexico. He said his people in Canada still "take their fish" and are impacted by these policies.

  There were no other questions in the briefing room. Inner City Press, co-founded of the new Free UN Coalition for Access, thanked the panels generally and asked about the World Bank and IMF. Video here, from Minute 21:20.

  Joan Carling said she'd made an intervention during the session on the World Bank, about the needs for a human rights framework beyond "do no harm." (Even that would be a major step forward for the UN, considering for example their introduction of cholera in to Haiti.)

  Grand Chief Edward John pointed out that the World Bank speaks of prior "consultation" rather than consent. But what about the International Monetary Fund? What are they? Inner City Press put in the question to the IMF on May 23. Watch this site.

At UN, UK's Alan Duncan Ducks BP Question on CSR, UN Global Compact with PetroChina as Sponsor

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/bp2ungc062310.html

UNITED NATIONS, June 23 -- On the 66th day of BP's oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, UK Minister of State for International Development Alan Duncan appeared at the UN for a UN Global Compact event. Inner City Press asked Minister Duncan to describe the role of the British government in making BP -- British Petroleum -- live to the corporate social responsibility standards of the Global Compact. Video here, from Minute 28:12.

“It's not for me to answer that questions,” Minister Duncan answered. “You very carefully, carefully steered your question to something which you wish to generate a headline, but it is not the purpose of our meeting.”

But the title of the meeting, and related Ministerial Statement, was “The Role of Government in Promoting Corporate Responsibility.” That the UK government has some responsibility for overseeing the practices of one of its largest corporation, the former Anglo-Persian oil company, is axiomatic.

Why then did Minister Duncan duck the question, and why would the UN, which says that the Global Compact and its events promote transparency, assist Minister Duncan be stepping in to dodge other parts of the question, and then quickly give the floor to another speaker? Video here, from Minute 28:51.

Inner City Press asked about the financial sponsors of the June 24-25 Global Compact Leaders Summit, including PetroChina, which has been protested for its investments with Sudan in Darfur. “The conference has many sources of support,” said the UN's Bob Orr, “all publicly available.”

But the UN's press pack has no list of sponsors. Perhaps Global Compact chief Georg Kell, who in mid June when Inner City Press asked about BP said “accidents happen,” will now provide the list of fiscal sponsors. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/bp2ungc062310.html

BP is Defended by UN, "Accidents Happen, Nature of Modern Life," Global Compact

By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/bp1ungc061510.html

UNITED NATIONS, June 15, updated with a UNGC correction -- As BP continues gushing oil for over 50 days into the Gulf of Mexico, at the UN on June 14, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's main adviser on corporate social responsibility defended the company.

"Big accidents happen all the time, it's the nature of modern life," said Georg Kell, Executive Director of the UN Global Compact. Video here, from Minute 42:20.

Kell was promoting an upcoming CSR event slated for New York on June 24, featuring Ban and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Inner City Press asked about several participating and donating corporation, including a tobacco distributor and a company of mercenaries or soldiers of fortune.

Then Inner City Press asked about BP, a long time Global Compact member. Video here, from Minute 33:11.

Kell claimed that BP has not been active in the Compact for two years. "I think their current status is non communicating," he said. But even as he said it, on the Global Compact website BP was listed as fully in compliance, with its next "communication of progress" not due until June 9, 2011.

One can only imagine what "progress" BP will communicate to the UN at that time. The reality is that the UN has no substantive standards for membership in the Global Compact.

Despite receiving numerous detailed complaints, the UN Global Compact has for example kept as a member PetroChina and its investment in Darfur with the Sudanese government of Omar al Bashir, indicted by the International Criminal Court.

That Kell would try to misrepresent the status of BP with the Global Compact, and so quickly try to distance the Compact from BP before defending it, reflects that BP's image is now worse than PetroChina's.

But that Kell would then dismissively say of BP's still gushing undersea pipeline, "Big accidents happen all the time, it's the nature of modern life," shows either that Kell is not the right person to lead the UN's Global Compact, or that the UN is not what it claims to be - or both. Watch this site.

Diplomatic footnote: "It seems that Kell is more responsive to the UK than the US," opined one senior UN official, who requested anonymity due to Ban Ki-moon's anti whistleblower policies. "But where is [US Ambassador] Susan Rice on this, given Obama's new public attacks on Tony Hayward and BP?"

Update - the day after this report, the UNGC put out a correction of Kell's statement -- and didn't even send it to Inner City Press.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/bp1ungc061510.html