World Economic Forum at Davos Highlights Controversies of Civil Society Participation

Bruce A. Jay, Center for Labor Research and Studies, FIU

The controversies within and about the FTAA Special Committee on the Participation of Civil Society are common knowledge. The issue of who represents civil society has arisen in many other instances as well. Perhaps the biggest shock was the remarks of Mexico’s president, Ernesto Zedillo, at a panel entitled, “After Seattle: The Debate Over Free Trade” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on January 28. According to official notes of the meeting, Zedillo derided the new alliance of “self-appointed representatives of civil society” on the left and right whose common goal is “to save the peoples of developing countries from development.” Speaking of an emerging “globophobia,” the Mexican president suggested that the motives for such an alliance had more to do with vested interests than with any real altruism. The next day, strong words were also heard from current WTO Director General Michael Moore. Speaking at another Davos panel, he harshly condemned the demonstrators in Seattle who kept the delegates from meeting. Moore insisted that duly elected democratic governments are the people’s representative and questioned, as did Zedillo, the legitimacy of the NGOs. (Similar words were used in a 1998 televised debate between the hemispheric labor leader Luis Anderson and the Chilean diplomat who organized the Santiago Summit of the Americas. “Who are you to complain about the acts of duly elected democratic governments?” the Chilean asked the elected leader of 45 million trade unionists). This was not the spirit that the Davos Forum has sought over 30 years of inviting NGOs and other civil society leaders to express divergent views. The question of representativity will continue to be played out in our own hemisphere.

In much of the Americas, with the notable exception of Mexico, the question of civil society representation is being dealt with more forthrightly than in other regions. Let us hope that inflammatory statements about “globophobia” won’t poison the waters. For example, MERCOSUR’s Economic and Social Councils are still functioning and seeking to expand their role. In Chile, Foreign Minister Juan Gabriel Valdez announced a permanent dialogue between the government and the Chilean Network of the Continental Social Alliance, “La Alianza por un Comercio Justo y Responsable.” And at the hemispheric level, the OAS’s Inter-American Council for Integral Development recently approved the Inter-American Strategy for the Promotion of Public Participation in Decision Making for Sustainable Development. Over two years in the making, this effort includes an advisory council and many consultations. The strategy is discussed on the Initiative’s website, www.ispnet.org.

According to some progressive environmental and developmental groups, much remains to be done to make the OAS effort a viable means of communication for civil society. Measures must be taken to ensure that independent, critical positions are recognized. The OAS initiative deserves careful attention as an example of the challenges and problems involved in achieving well-balanced representation in official organizations. Recently, the USTR was challenged in U.S. Federal Court by environmental groups organized as the “Northwest Ecosystems Alliance” over an interim designation made to the Industry Sector Advisory Committee on Lumber and Wood Products. This case has a significance well beyond its initial scope. NGO participation on such panels is unprecedented; the conflict typifies the struggles over how a government will provide for “authentic” civil society representation, even if it means allowing its critics space. This is an essential challenge in developing a strong participative democratic tradition in the Americas.