(1995)
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In Copenhagen, the UN's World Summit on Social Development was the occasion for advancing the road to global governance. The central theme of the conference was the "eradication of poverty.” The agenda also included population policies, the reduction of consumption, and elevating NGO participation. More than anything else, the conference was about money, getting it to the UN, and increasing the power of the UN to collect it and spend it. The conference proposed an international "20/20 Compact” which would require developing countries and aid donors to allocate 20 percent Official Development Assistance (OAD) to "human development priorities.” Commitment 8 in the Draft Conference Document calls on nations to target .07 percent of Gross Domestic Product to Official Development Assistance.93 The conference was used by the UN-funded Commission on Global Governance to float a trial balloon: global taxation. Buried in the UNDP's 1994 Human Development Report was an idea advanced by James Tobin calling for a "uniform international tax on international currency transactions.” When the UNDP report was presented to the conference, it was heralded as the way to provide "substantial reliable funds for sustainable human development.” Conference documents describe the proceeds from the tax as "immense, over $1.5 trillion per year (150 times the current total UN budget) to be devoted to international and humanitarian purposes and to be placed at the disposal of international institutions.”94 Other global taxes were also proposed: international travel; telecommunications; and taxes on resource use - especially energy resources. Paragraph 75 of the conference document calls for the "strengthening of...non-government organizations... enabling them to participate actively in policy-making... involving these organizations in the design, implementation and evaluation of social development strategies and specific programmes.“ It was clear to Rita Joseph, who attended the conference for Population Research Institute, that "The thrust currently behind the latest declarations is to set up not only monitoring bodies, but enforcement agencies, to which individual and group petitions concerning perceived grievances may be mounted. There is a push on to expand international government so that it reaches right down to communities and homes, there to dabble in values reorientation.”95 NGO lobbying activities for this conference were coordinated by the Overseas Development Council in Washington, DC., according to WRl's NGO Networker. (The editor of the NGO Networker, Sarah Burns, went to work for the UNDP in Washington as NGO Liaison in 1994). |