PRESS BRIEFING ON `GLOBAL COMPACT' WEB SITE

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING ON `GLOBAL COMPACT' WEB SITE

A new United Nations Web site, which aims to advocate for business sector involvement in human rights, environment and labour matters, would be launched today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, journalists were told today at a United Nations Headquarters briefing.

Georg Kell, a senior official from the Secretary-General's Office, explained that the new Web site -- to be found at www.unglobalcompact.com -- was a part of a strategy to encourage commitment to, and understanding of, the Global Compact launched by Secretary-General Kofi Annan about one year ago. While it remained a work in progress, with many interfaces still in the pipeline, it was already the most comprehensive Web site on corporate citizenship on the Internet.

Senior United Nations officials from three key implementing partners: the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson; the International Labour Organization's Director-General, Juan Somavia; and the United Nations Environment Programme Executive Director, Klaus Toepfer, would be attending the launch.

Mr. Kell said the Web site explained, in business terms, why business should adopt internationally established principles in the three areas of the Compact: environment, human rights and labour. It also provided background for the Global Compact, including on the international agreements that underpinned it.

Mr. Kell stressed that the principles that business was being asked to sign on to were not new. Rather, they were principles to which the international community was already committed. The Compact, and its Web site, were looking for innovative ways to give meaning to and encourage implementation of the fine words of existing international agreements.

Those agreements were often not implemented, he explained. The United Nations was looking to the international business community to implement environment, human rights and labour standards within its sphere of influence. Power and responsibility could not be separated, he said, and because international economic actors enjoyed expanding economic rights, it was fair to ask them to couple those rights with social responsibility.

He hoped the Web site would serve as an advocacy tool and as a place for dialogue, he said. Another function of the Web site was to help translate principles into corporate practice. It offered relevant guidelines and projects from the United Nations, as well as examples of projects and implementation from other players with experience in the fields.

It would also link, and in some cases make available for the first time, comprehensive databases on human rights, on the environment and on labour, he added. The site was a one-stop shop for information.

Global Compact Briefing - 2 - 28 January 2000

The United Nations had approached policy-oriented global bodies -- notably the global business associations -- to seek their support for the Compact, he said, and all those bodies had endorsed it and were "on board". There had also been a lot of positive feedback from developing countries, including China and Guatemala. The next step, currently in the pipeline, was to make approaches to corporations.

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