NEW YORK - United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has been accused of offering Nike, Royal Dutch Shell and other global giants the right to use the UN emblem to "bluewash" their images.
Chief executives of 50 corporates have been invited by Annan to come to UN headquarters in New York today to sign up for a "partnership" scheme to end Third World sweatshops and environmental abuses.
Among those invited are Nike, Shell, and the mining giant Rio Tinto, all accused in the past of human rights violations.
The scheme will commit them to upholding nine key principles including the rights of workers to unionise, the elimination of child labour and the development of environmentally friendly technologies.
But "the global compact" plan has provoked fury among aid and environmental agencies who say it will allow companies, notorious for human rights violations, to use the UN emblem to give their activities a branding makeover, while doing nothing of substance to clean up their activities.
"It allows companies like Nike, the global symbol of sweatshops, to wrap themselves in the UN flag without any binding commitment to change," said Joshua Karliner, executive director of the San Francisco-based corporate monitoring group Transnational Resource and Action.
"This will enhance the Nike brand name and could be a powerful marketing tool."
The same companies taking part in Annan's initiative are at the same time lobbying furiously, said Karliner, to undermine a letter to the Secretary-General signed by 20 non-governmental agencies that said the initiative implied UN official policy was to support corporate-driven globalisation.
It said that the voluntary nature of the deal would let corporations "wrap themselves in the flag of the UN to 'bluewash' their public image while at the same time avoiding significant changes to their behaviour."
The scheme will require companies to post on a UN website their actions to end sweatshop conditions and prevent environmental degradation.
However, they will be under no obligation to observe a code of conduct or a set of minimum standards.
Critics say the plan will undermine existing efforts by other UN agencies to force Governments to hold companies accountable to existing UN conventions.
John Ruggie, chief adviser to Annan, defended the initiative, saying it reflected concern in the UN at the unfettered growth of globalisation.
"This is an experiment, it is a very unusual initiative which brings all sides of the debate together on a common platform but I would be very surprised if the companies involved tried to pull the wool over our eyes."
He said the initiative was aimed at launching a dialogue accompanied by practical actions, rather than a binding code of conduct that would take years to negotiate.
"It's about making the world a better place."
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UN seen as selling 'bluewash' to corporate giants
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