[casi] U.S. Conservatives Take Aim at NGOs

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1) U.S. Conservatives Take Aim at NGOs

2a) AEI conference details
2b) Related Material - Papers [only URLs]
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1)

http://commondreams.org/headlines03/0612-09.htm

Published on Thursday, June 12, 2003 by OneWorld.net

U.S. Conservatives Take Aim at NGOs
by Jim Lobe


WASHINGTON - While non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as Amnesty
International, Greenpeace, and Oxfam have made significant contributions to
human rights, the environment, and development, they are using their growing
prominence and power to pursue a "liberal" agenda at the international level
that threatens U.S. sovereignty and free-market capitalism.

That was the message delivered by a series of speakers at an all-day
conference, "Nongovernmental Organizations: The Growing Power of an
Unelected Few," Wednesday sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute
(AEI), a Washington think tank that has been particularly influential with
the Bush administration.



On the global political front, international NGOs, which led the fight for
the global ban on anti-personnel mines, the Kyoto Protocol to curb
greenhouse-gas emissions, and the treaty establishing the International
Criminal Court (ICC), are pursuing a "liberal internationalist" vision that
is very much at odds with that of the Bush administration, according to
American University law professor Kenneth Anderson.


"NGOs have created their own rules and regulations and demanded that
governments and corporations abide by those rules," according to AEI and the
conference co-sponsor, the rightist Institute of Public Affairs of
Australia. "Politicians and corporate leaders are often forced to respond to
the NGO media machine, and the resources of taxpayers and shareholders are
used in support of ends they did not sanction."

"The extraordinary growth of advocacy NGOs in liberal democracies has the
potential to undermine the sovereignty of constitutional democracies, as
well as the effectiveness of credible NGOs," they warned.

To shed more light on NGOs, AEI announced the launch of a new website,
NGOWatch.org (www.ngowatch.org), that will provide information about their
operations, funding sources and political agendas. Brian Hook of the
Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, which is co-sponsoring
the site, said it will cover those NGOs "with the most influence in
international affairs."

NGOs, which have proliferated at the local level since the
1980s--particularly in developing countries--have become major players at
the United Nations and other multilateral agencies, such as the World Bank,
which had traditionally dealt only with governments. Several thousand NGOs
now enjoy "consultative status" at the UN, which entitles them to
participate in some debates, while their image as representatives of "global
civil society" has endowed them with a moral and political legitimacy, which
they have used as leverage in dealing with the other major global actors,
governments and corporations.

But, unlike corporations and governments, they are largely unregulated, and
their internal processes often lack transparency and accountability,
according to their critics and even to many NGOs themselves. Indeed, a UN
commission on civil society chaired by former Brazilian President Henrique
Cardoso is expected to recommend the adoption of guidelines or other
mechanisms to ensure that NGOs recognized by the UN are transparent and
accountable.

To the groups who gathered at AEI Wednesday, however, international NGOs
raise concerns that go far beyond transparency and accountability. To them,
the international NGOs are pursuing a leftist or "liberal" agenda that
favors "global governance" and other notions that are also promoted by the
United Nations and other multilateral agencies.

"This is inherently a project that is tilted to the left," according to
Cornell University government professor Jeremy Rabkin, who argued that NGOs
are using the multilateral system to try to regulate corporations and
governments.

"NGOs want to be players. They want to be regulators," agreed Institute of
Public Affairs's Gary Johns. He cited NGO lobbying for the adoption of codes
of conduct for multinational corporations. "Before long, you have a degree
of regulation that no one thought was possible."

In fact, according to George Washington University political science
professor Jarol Manheim, international NGOs are pursuing "a new and
pervasive form of conflict" against corporations which he calls "Biz-war,"
the title of his forthcoming book. NGOs, for example, work with sympathetic
institutional investors, such as union and church-based pension funds, to
sponsor shareholder resolutions demanding that corporations adopt more
environment- or human-rights-friendly policies. Such efforts, he said,
should be seen as "part of a larger, anti-corporate campaign."

This was echoed by John Entine, an AEI adjunct fellow, who called the
"social investing" movement, as it is called, a "wolf in sheep's clothing.
"Anti-free market NGOs under the guise of corporate reform are extending
their reach into the boardrooms of corporations," he said. "In many cases,
naive corporate reformers, within corporations and in government, are
welcoming them."

Moreover, the strategy is working. "Big shareholders are getting embarrassed
to be associated with some companies," said Manheim, who noted that
companies are increasingly using NGOs as consultants or even hiring former
NGO officials to protect themselves against negative publicity or consumer
boycotts.

On the global political front, international NGOs, which led the fight for
the global ban on anti-personnel mines, the Kyoto Protocol to curb
greenhouse-gas emissions, and the treaty establishing the International
Criminal Court (ICC), are pursuing a "liberal internationalist" vision that
is very much at odds with that of the Bush administration, according to
American University law professor Kenneth Anderson.

These efforts are intended in part to further a world order based on "global
governance" and the rule of international law, rather than one based on the
sovereignty of democratic nation states. The leaders of international NGOs
are part of a culture that "wants to constrain the United States" and whose
ideas about world order "are not congenial to the ideas of this
administration," according to Anderson.

Several speakers praised the work of NGOs in providing services and
humanitarian aid to needy people in developing countries but stressed that,
at the international policy level, much of what they did actually hurt the
intended beneficiaries. Roger Bate, director of Africa Fighting Malaria,
cited NGOs' opposition to the use of DDT to fight malaria and to the
delivery of genetically-modified maize in southern Africa as examples of
policies which amounted to "eco-imperialism" and showed a "callous disregard
for human life."

"NGOs definitely provide benefits in the short run, but in the long run,
their influence is almost always malign," he said.

Mike Nahan, Institute of Public Affairs's executive director, charged that
international NGOs supported secession movements in East Timor and Aceh,
Indonesia; put Papua New Guinea "on the road to bankruptcy" by forcing out
the mining industry; and is "destroying civil society in many of these
countries."

Copyright 2003 OneWorld.net

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2a) AEI conference details

http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.329,filter.foreign/event_detail.asp


We're Not from the Government, but We're Here to Help You
Nongovernmental Organizations: The Growing Power of an Unelected Few

Start:  Wednesday, June 11, 2003  9:30 AM

End:  Wednesday, June 11, 2003  4:30 PM

Location:  Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI
1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
Directions to AEI

In recent years, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have proliferated,
their rise facilitated by governments and corporations desperate to
subcontract development projects. While many NGOs have made significant
contributions to human rights, the environment, and economic and social
development, a lack of international standards for NGO accountability also
allows far less credible organizations to have a significant influence on
policymaking. The growing power of supranational organizations and a loose
set of rules governing the accreditation of NGOs has meant that an unelected
few have access to growing and unregulated power.

NGOs have created their own rules and regulations and demanded that
governments and corporations abide by those rules. Many nations’ legal
systems encourage NGOs to use the courts-or the specter of the courts-to
compel compliance. Politicians and corporate leaders are often forced to
respond to the NGO media machine, and the resources of taxpayers and
shareholders are used in support of ends they did not intend to sanction.
The extraordinary growth of advocacy NGOs in liberal democracies has the
potential to undermine the sovereignty of constitutional democracies, as
well as the effectiveness of credible NGOs.

Please join AEI and the Institute of Public Affairs (Australia) on June 11
to debate NGO influence and accountability.

AEI and the Federalist Society are also pleased to announce the launch of
the website for their new joint project-NGOWatch. Please visit NGOWatch.org
for more information.


9:15 a.m.
 Registration

9:30
 Welcome and Introduction

9:45
 Session I


 Moderator:
 John Fonte, Hudson Institute


 Paper 1:
 "The NGO Challenge: Whose Democracy Is It Anyway?"
 Gary Johns, Institute of Public Affairs, Australia


 Paper 2:
 "International NGO Organization: Why the Left Are Winning"
 Jeremy Rabkin, Cornell University

11:05
 Session II



 Moderator:
 Roger Bate, International Policy Network


 Paper 1:
 "Biz-War: Origins, Structure, and Strategy of Foundation-NGO Network
Warfare on Corporations in the United States"
 Jarol Manheim, George Washington University

  Paper 2: "Increasing NGO Openness and Accountability"
    David Riggs, Capital Research Center
12:30 p.m. Luncheon Keynote Address Kenneth Anderson, American University
Law School

1:55 Session III
  Moderator: Brian Hook, Hogan and Hartson, LLP
  Paper 1: "NGOs and Foreign Aid: A Case Study in Institutional Capture"
    Mike Nahan, Institute of Public Affairs, Australia

  Paper 2: "Northern NGOs in the South: Health, Wealth, and the Environment"
    Roger Bate, International Policy Network

3:15 Session IV
  Moderator: Fred Smith, Competitive Enterprise Institute
  Paper 1: "The Corporate Social Responsibility Policy of the European
Union: A European Implementation of Globalist Goals"
    Marguerite Peeters, Institute for Intercultural Dialogue Dynamics,
Brussels
  Paper 2: "Why NGO-Stakeholder Dialogue Can Endanger Corporate Social
Responsibility"
    Jon Entine, AEI and Miami University of Ohio
4:30
 Adjournment


More Information
Molly McKew
American Enterprise Institute
 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W.
Washington, DC  20036
Fax: 202-862-7177
E-mail: MMcKew@aei.org

Media Inquiries
Veronique Rodman
American Enterprise Institute
 1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W.
Washington, DC  20036
Phone: 202-862-4871
Fax: 202-862-7171
E-mail: VRodman@aei.org

-----------------------------------

2b) Related Material - Papers

NGO Watch
http://www.ngowatch.org/

Announcment
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20030612_NGOWATCHannouncement.pdf

Speaker Biographies
http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.17698/pub_detail.asp

Manheim's paper
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20030612_manheimpub.pdf

Manheim's presentation
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20030611_Manheim.pdf

Bate's paper
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20030612_batepub.pdf

Entine's paper
http://www.aei.org/docLib/20030612_entinepub.pdf


You can find this online at:
http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.329,filter.foreign/event_detail.asp





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