Topic: Bridging Global Gaps: Civil Society in a Globalized World

October 19, 2004

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Thank you all very much. We're now going to start the final session of our conference, where we will hear from the coordinators of the three workshops, what conclusions they have come to. And we're going to have a break exactly at 3:00 and reconvene exactly at 3:20, because we have a couple of media presentations from guests abroad, so I want to start this quite promptly.
You recall that we had three workshops. Workshop One was on Civil society in politics: old deficits or new power? Workshop Two was about civil society in a global economy: Critique or cooperation?, and Workshop Three was global governance: Democracy vs. efficiency. Now, we have a presentation from leaders of each of those three groups, and I'm going to first ask Beryl Levinger from Workshop One on civil society in politics to make her presentation.

Beryl Levinger
We had a very challenging discussion in that our topic was civil society and its relationship to political issues. And of course, that meant that we really had to determine what it was that we wanted to discuss. We did come up, at the end of our discussion, with what I would call an over-arching statement, and I'll go through the statement and then I suppose we'll have an opportunity for questions.
We started off with a set of core beliefs and we fashioned, in effect, a preamble. The first part of our preamble notes that there are vast differences across societies, but what we were looking to exploit and explore were what very different societies might have in common, so that the rest of our recommendations will focus not on particular situations, but on general principles that would govern most of civil society. We spoke about civil society in a very specific way, as representing the organized part of society engaged in planned activity to support democratization and the exercise of rights.
You'll see in just a moment that we took a very rights-centric approach to our work. What's going to follow now is a set of recommendations. And of course, you're probably asking to whom are they addressed and for what purpose? So we start off by saying that these recommendations, essentially, represent issues and concerns that must be incorporated into any proposal, any strategy, or any policy that's designed to strengthen the contribution that civil society can make to democratization. Please note again that we're not talking about all of the many other contributions that civil society can make. We chose to limit our discussion to the relationship between civil society and democracy either strengthening democracy, maintaining it, sustaining it, or creating it.
Our first statement is what we call an emphasis on rights. And I suspect that it probably would be easy for me to just go ahead and read it. The notion of rights offers a framework for the claims and roles of civil society. Human dignity is what girds rights. Rights, norms, and legitimacy of rights are the foundation of a civil society. International pressure is needed to protect and defend these rights. Here, we're referring to the role of global civil society. Civil society, in part through watchdog organizations, needs to monitor governments; that is, how governments implement and respect rights. Rights are only useful insofar as they are accompanied by accessible remedies, and for this reason, public interest law organizations are a critical component of civil society.
Again, our first set of recommendations and ideas relates to a rights-based framework. It continues, still on the rights-based framework. Freedom of association is a right that serves as a precondition for a viable civil society. When we speak of rights, we're concerned with all rights. And as I'm sure all of you know, rights have been classified as economic, cultural, and social rights, as well as civic and political rights. And because there were some of us who were concerned with poverty, in particular, we did include the notion that economic rights include the right to economic security, or not living a life in such extreme poverty that basic human needs could not be met.
The source of rights – where do they come from? We said from treaties and conventions, including the universal declaration of human rights, declaration of the rights of the child, convention to end discrimination against women, and the implied rights of the Millennium development goals. Now, this is not a complete or comprehensive list of rights, but it is, at least, a starting point.
The next piece of our framework offers a set of comments relating to the connection between civil society and social capital, as well as some other enabling conditions. Civil society cannot emerge without an associational culture that produces social capital. There also must be processes for engaging marginalized groups in order for civil society to flourish. It is necessary for actors to have a comprehensive vision of the full range of characteristics of an enabling environment, even though many of these conditions may not yet be in place, and we have a listing of what the Rolls-Royce, the ultimate end of the continuum, would look like if we're talking about the ideal set of conditions that enable civil society. I'll present that in a few moments. A nation's fiscal policy must recognize and support civil society, and by that we mean transparency of budgeting, tax code as well as, even in some cases, budgetary allocations.
The next topic that we addressed is legitimacy, and before I continue, I just want to go back, if I may, to the second slide, so that you could understand what the framework is, now that you're in the middle of it. These are the issues that we feel need to be addressed for a holistic, comprehensive strategy, policy or proposal that's designed to strengthen civil society's contribution to democratization. So what we attempted to produce as our recommendation was a framework through which strategies, policies, projects, programs, might be created.

Legitimacy

We recognize that there is a difference between the legitimacy of a civil society's existence and its right to act on the one hand, and the legitimacy of recommendations and, for that matter, even specific actions that arise from civil society, on the other hand. In other words, not everything that civil society proposes is necessarily legitimate or correct, but the right of civil society to propose, that is legitimate and correct. Since our topic, as I mentioned earlier, is specifically how civil society promotes democracy, we wanted to say a few words about that as well in our framework. We recognize that citizens can be viewed as rights holders. Correspondingly, there are duty or responsibility bearers and it is these duty or responsibility bearers to whom a rights holder can claim. Civil society's role may be to close the gap between the rights holders and the responsibility bearers.
Our next rubric is open dialogue. Civil society must engage representatives from government and the private sector in ongoing conversation in order to build support for its pro-democracy agenda. It was noted that the representation here from the private sector and from government at best could be described as modest, and perhaps one could even describe it more bleakly. Diplomatic tools and consumer pressure group campaigns are valuable assets that are available to civil society as it pursues its agenda. Greater attention should be given to the encouragement of a communication networking strategy across civil society groups. Networking can be particularly valuable in helping civil society organizations to determine which strategies work or fail in a variety of contexts.
The final thing that we included in our presentation is a set of characteristics for an environment that are especially enabling of civil society. We recognize that only in the most robust of democracies will all of these characteristics be present. But if civil society wants to work for a greater voice in the democratization process, then civil society, in turn, would clearly want to work for the conditions that are described in this list of characteristics of an enabling environment. The ones that we focused in our group were, in essence, the first and the last. I'll get to the last in the next slide. The presence of social capital, which is related to an associational culture where people form groups for a common purpose, and the very last one, if everybody's had a chance to look at the list, which is the rights-based orientation of civil society groups. So, that would conclude our presentation.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
We will have a discussion after all the three presentations, but for the time being, if there are any strictly factual or urgent questions to Beryl, I will take them now. There is an overlap between these three presentations, so perhaps it will be best to have them together.

Beryl Levinger
I also want to give members of the group an opportunity, if I did not capture something appropriately, this would be a wonderful time to correct any misinformation that I'm disseminating.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
I think we'll expedite these matters and proceed with business. Frank Lampl is going to present the results of Workshop Three, which was concerned with civil society in a global economy.

Sir Frank Lampl
Good afternoon. We went, as our masters instructed us, through chaos to some conclusions, which I would like to present to you now. Bearing in mind that the global economic system, the global economy, is in existence and came into existence through development in the technology and transportation and communications, plus the political freedom in places which, before, were isolated artificially or politically, we have this global economic system in existence. And we want to express what it should be. It should be within a system of standards, which I would like now to describe as we discussed them yesterday and today.
Globally – generally we are saying that it should just be a democratic and ethical economic system--that is a system based on human rights. And, we described the human rights in its minimalistic form as a minimum life standard, the right for food, right for air, right for water, sustainable income, education and health, right to be secure and have the right of social and political participation, and having these as a woman, and as minorities as well. That's how we described what I would say are the minimum rights which should be protected by the global economic system.
First, those rights should be based on a deepened democracy of checks and balances on transparency in the chain between production and consumption. The right to protect what and how was an issue which we discussed quite in length and did not come to final conclusion. But it became out of the discussion quite clear that some right of protection through internal legislation of nations must be maintained; otherwise the global economic system will collapse. There is a need for shared and increased responsibility between governments, business, social society, and individuals. That global economy affects every single individual all over the world, and therefore, no part of our society can exclude itself from the responsibility of influencing the global economy in a positive way.
The civil society is a separate element, which we discussed. Where can it influence and take on responsibility for this focus area? The civil society can continue to press governments to honor existing international agreements and standards. Civil society can continue examining potential transformation of the relevant international multilateral organizations. We took the view that the governments are elected, and it's their duty to keep the systems. Businesses should have social responsibility, with the understanding that still the main issue for business is looking after the shareholders and satisfying the shareholders' interests, business has to take on a degree of social responsibility.
What is the project? Building on the work of the delegates present in the workshop, we recommend the following: Increased work on the transparency chain between producer and customer. All of the relevant information about pricing and conditions should be on the label of goods. We would like to recommend bringing the customer in as a custodian of those rights which we described in the beginning.
With an attempt to the question, “Where should the support come from?” we believe that Forum 2000 should support the development of those ideas which I described before. And surely continue diversity of backgrounds, positions, and perspectives at the conference, as this is a rare possibility for certain kinds of conversation. We found it very useful that actually each member of our committee came from another part of life, and therefore, we had different views, different attitudes towards those problems. Extract continuous issues from this conference, for more detailed deliberation, and substantially increase the representation of civil society actors from the global south. Thank you very much.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Thank you very much, Frank. I think there's a question.

Observer
I have a question to the first line on page one, “The transparency chain between producer and consumer.” I would actually urge to specify that also the cost of advertisement in the project is specified on that, because I think that advertisement is spending incredible amounts of money, it's our money, it's not the producer's money, and we should be able to compare how much we are taxed for that garbage, in buying a project, and compare projects from that point of view would be important.

Sir Frank Lampl
Because the volume and cost of advertising could be in annual reports, this doesn't have to be only in the label.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Let me proceed straight to the next presentation. Peter Merry is going to present the conclusions of Workshop Two, which was about Global Governance: Democracy vs. Efficiency.

Peter Merry
The theme of this workshop was global governance. We were exploring the tension between democracy and efficiency, which was essentially this question of: “We know we need to act quickly globally, and, at the same time we know we need to have as many voices heard and as many of the needs met in the world as possible as we move on.” So, how do you marry the kind of technical, rapid problem-solving solutions that Jean François Rischard proposed to us at the beginning with the need for democratic legitimacy? That was the issue that we were talking about. And we've got two proposals ready which have come out of the workshop, and they've come out of specific people and groups in the workshop, so they're not representative of the whole workshop. And the first issue was around the question of legitimate participation, which Anuradha is going to speak to us about.

Anuradha Mittal
In our working group we had the issue of power dynamics come up several times. In terms of who controls the process, whose decisions, who gets to participate, and what some of us felt was that what we need to talk about is legitimate participation. Because when we talk about convening experts the question should be, “Who defines these experts, who are they?” So, one suggestion was that we needed to have not only the stakeholders that are present, but that there was a need for having the other key stakeholders present in this room, at this table, for example. So if you talk about the role of civil society, that we needed to have social movements, poor people's organizations also should be represented. If you're going to talk about the direction which we move forward for global governance, definitely a larger need to have representatives from certain countries, Africa, Asia, again representing social movements. We do have NGOs, we do have representatives from international financial institutions, governments, but we needed to have poor, who are the best experts on poverty, be present here. Also a need for the civil society, for the movements from Central and Eastern Europe as well. So we could have a more international dialogue in terms of how we move forward from global governance, given the realities of very different parts of the world.

Peter Merry
Thank you. Then we actually had a concrete proposal for how we could combine some of the institutional ideas which are around for actually bridging this question of democracy and efficiency. And the questions which we were sitting with at the beginning of today, out of which this proposal emerged, are the ones which are up there: How do we build moral leadership? How do we create new power relationships? How do we create new processes to challenge existing ones? And how do we create stronger accountability? So those are the questions out of which this proposal emerged. And it's Jeremy Hobbs, Jakob von Uexkull, and Anuradha Mittal who felt the passion around this proposal and who are taking responsibility for taking it forward. So, Jakob is going to speak to us first, about a key element of this, and then Jeremy is going to sketch out how this core element relates to the bigger picture and also to the work which Jean-François Rischard has done.

Jakob von Uexkull
Thank you. We noticed at the moment, decision-making is not just inefficient, it isn't even effective in the sense that even decisions taken are not being implemented, and millennium goals is just one example. Why is this? Because there is a lack of trust in political institutions, and increasingly in all institutions of society.
How can we rebuild trust? By bringing together, we suggest, an ongoing forum, persons who are trusted, who have ethical integrity, and we noted that there is an existing initiative working to do this, called the World Future Council Initiative. This council would not claim to represent others, but to speak up for our shared values as world citizens. And not just for narrow consumer values, it would speak up for the interests of future generations. It would not be a competitive organization, but an inclusive process framework to bridge this existing implementation gap.
It would, ideally, have about a hundred members worldwide, globally representative, from three categories, wise planetary elders, pioneers, and youth leaders. And they would come out of a global consultation process which, in fact, has really been ongoing for some time. It would work with thematic commissions or global-issue networks. We found there was an almost complete overlap between the issues we had identified and the issues which Jean-François Rischard had identified as those needing urgent action on the global level. And it would be composed of representatives of various stakeholders with knowledge of this issue who would also be able to work together and cross-fertilize each other, so we would avoid the dangers of over-specialization.
The council would work with national members of parliament now being linked electronically through the so-called e-Parliament initiative, to make sure that the recommendations are being brought into national parliaments and implemented there, on a sort of step-by-step, issue-by-issue basis, depending on the most urgent priorities. Even before that stage is reached, we felt this council would help to deepen and de-trivialize public debate, which of course is a precondition for informed democratic decision-making. It would build on existing work, like the Earth's Charter, for example, but it would fill a crucial missing ethical dimension. It would bridge the often-lamented gap between demands for proposals which are realistic today. Further, it can be implemented with comparatively few resources now, and the demand for problem realism.
And of course, the Prague Forum of President Havel, as an outstanding ethical global leader, would be an ideal place to launch it and help take it forward. The legitimacy would come out of, in the longer run, the quality of its work, and of course, its integration into global processes of consultation and of course, its links with parliamentarians who would implement its recommendations. And one could imagine also a network of local, regional and national future councils developing, which is really happening in Switzerland. Thank you.

Peter Merry
Thanks, Jakob. So that came out of, if you like, us being excited by Jean-François Rischard's vision for how we could act rapidly, with a recognition of the need to have some democratic legitimation for those processes. To build a field of trust, this would enable the initiative which he was talking about to have legitimacy as it was enacted. And Jeremy Hobbs is going to talk to us a little bit about how we could see those relationships.

Jeremy Hobbs
I'm the plumber. These guys were the conceptual artists, I'm the plumber. What we tried to do was to look at the ideas that are around. We recognized that status quo is not an option. So, we have to do something different if we're going to address the urgency. And there was both interest in the global issues network and concern about the global issues network, because of a lack of legitimacy or legitimation of the process that Jean François articulated.
The second option for us is to go for a global parliament, and we felt that the time frame for such a thing doesn't exist. And even if it's practicable, we're not sure if that would be the way forward, so the planning part was to try to connect up the pieces, to try and make it effective. The World Futures Council is a very exciting idea, and it would be a way of, if you like, providing legitimacy for what is actually a technical exercise, which is the global issues network concept of Jean-François. The World Futures Council needs an auspice. It can't exist all by itself, and it needs to be connected both to the U.N. and to member states of the U.N. So we felt it was very important to get it auspiced, but not managed, by the U.N., because frankly, with all due respect to the U.N., that's like walking through porridge.
There's a missing line here on the diagram which is actually the connection between the World Futures Council and member states, and that has to do with the MPs that Jakob has already mentioned. It has to have legitimacy both nationally and at U.N. level, without being managed by either. So this, we think is quite a tricky little way of doing that. For civil society legitimacy, it needs to connect with the World Social Forum as an opportunity to consult on ideas that might come up. And, we also felt there is plenty of existing processes to connect with, such as the recent Bangkok conference on HIV. So if you took an issue like HIV, you would naturally build in existing processes, so we're not trying to reinvent everything. The role of the World Futures Council, then, is to commission and prioritize the tasks that we need to focus on to address the sorts of concerns that Jean-François raised yesterday. And it may not be exactly his list, and it may not be exactly his process, but we felt there was some excitement in the possibility of coming up with neutral advice that wasn't manipulated or controlled by the existing stakeholders, because you can imagine, if we do this through the existing structures now, the usual vested interests grab it.
And, we also felt, in terms of the World Social Forum, it's not just the World Social Forum, it's the national forums, the European Social Forum, and others that have come up. So, the World Futures Council becomes an interlocutor between the civil-society groups and the U.N. and member states. It provides information and strategies to challenge the orthodoxy that you see in the groups on the right. That's not to say that the groups on the right are always wrong, indeed, we can imagine the World Futures Council consulting with experts from within the Bank, the IMF, and the WTO. But what we don't want; is for it to be a captive of any of those particular institutions, and we don't think it's in their interests, either. So I'll stop there.

Peter Merry
Good, thank you. We just have one last slide, which is about, if we want this to happen, how could the Forum 2000 potentially support this. And how could all of you, who are sitting here, also potentially support this, and Jakob was going to speak briefly on that.

Jakob von Uexkull
Thank you. Well, obviously we welcome your endorsement, I'll be happy to give those of you who haven't received it yet, some information about the endorsements we've already had, for example, from Dr. Butrous Ghali, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, from Prince Hassan of Jordan, the President of the Club of Rome, and from a whole spectrum of leaders from civil society all over the world, and we very much welcome to add your endorsement to this project.
We felt it would be extremely appropriate, for the reasons already mentioned, you know, President Havel's standing as an ethical leader for the Forum, at one of its next meetings, to bring together the founding council of the World Future Council. And maybe even hold a launching, an inaugural meeting of the World Future Council here in Prague. At the moment, there is an initiative, a World Future Council initiative, and we will only launch the council when we have secured funding for at least the first three to five years. Because we do not want to approach potential councilors, who are very busy people, and offer them the chance to participate in something which may just lead to another nice declaration which they can then put on their bookshelves. There have been too many of those short-time commissions and meetings already.
We are now at the stage when we would welcome any connections, which might bring in financial support, practical organizational support. We have been offered, in one or two countries, offices which would be funded locally, which would translate materials into the local language, which would spread awareness of this project there. That's another way we could work together, if you spread the word and also recommend members from your countries. Who is the ethical elder, planetary elder, the wise woman or man in your country you think should really be on such a council—someone who people respect as a leader of ethical integrity in your country? Who is the pioneer in academia, in business, in civil society, and who is the youth leader? We'd very much welcome those names. Thank you very much.

Peter Merry
That's it. Thank you.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Thank you very much. We have managed in something like forty minutes to have three presentations done, and as you've noticed, without any organization previously, there are a lot of overlapping themes and propositions. When I think about it, when we started yesterday, we had two contrasting presentations from Jean-François Rischard and Anuradha Mittal, and in a sense, what was common to them was that it was agreed that the world was not as it should be, but how to set it right was not agreed. But I think we now, over the course of a day and a half, got somewhere. I think there are some concrete proposals, there are lots of ideas that the groups have come up with. And floor is open, we'll go until three o'clock, then we'll have a break, at 3:20 we'll reconvene again. We'll then have a couple of presentations, at 3:30 we shall resume the discussion.
You're welcome to start. Who's going to start? There, Colin.

Colin Hines
Thanks. Just one sort of point of clarification: in our group, the last slide mentioned one thing that the Forum 2000 might want to do in its next meeting, and that is to consider in much more detail what was, without doubt, the most contentious, bit of the discussion; which is this question of the right to protect. And what do we mean by the right to protect? We mean how much, how far does that protection go? Does it stop at things like food and water, or does it extend into other goods and manufacturing? So, that was a discussion which we felt should be part of the deliberations of the next meeting, if there is a next meeting, because it was the discussion that probably prompted the most interesting interaction.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Thank you for that. Anyone else want to add observations? Sylvia.

Sylvia Borren
I very much liked the last presentation we saw, and the plumbing and the idea of the World Future Council and how it works. I think it's important in this combination of world elders, pioneers, and youth leaders that we do pay attention to the basic thing of gender balance, and diversity. So I think that should be added in.

Wiktor Osiatynski
This World Future Council, of course, will come up with its recommendations and ideas that will challenge a lot of vested interests, so naturally, if it is to be any good, it will be attacked from many sides. So I think we should really very carefully think about the legitimacy of that body because its legitimacy will be challenged. And if I hear that we will be recommending the elders, then of course, legitimacy of those elders will be challenged again, and I think that this really requires a lot of creative thinking. How, without going through normal national or international voting procedures, we could assure, as much as possible, legitimacy for such a body.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Yes, Gavan.

Gavan Titley
Thank you. I'd just like to make a little comment on the very interesting idea of the World Future Council, on the types of representatives that can be there in terms of the categories that Jakob offered. And then the question of legitimacy, because I, and Peter have been involved for a long time in youth training and youth policy within a European framework, within the Council of Europe framework, which is forty-three nation states who are signed up to certain conventions which allow them to participate in the youth structures. The problem of legitimacy around the concept of youth has been a very interesting one for a long time. And this has mainly got to do with the definition of youth. Sociologists make an argument, which is, there's actually no such thing as youth anymore. Because when you look at the kinds of work that people are doing and how they come into work, when you look at the relationship between their backgrounds and their life chances, when you look at the ways in which, if you like, the kinds of capital that they have to progress through, what used to be a reasonably clear road from youth to adulthood, or what used to be called youth to adulthood, and, with the kind of diversity of chances and obstacles that people face now, it's incredibly difficult for the old system of youth organizations, which was national youth councils, the youth branches of international non-governmental organizations and so forth, to consider themselves as being representative. I think it would be interesting to have a dialogue around this idea of youth leaders within something called the World Future Council. This obviously means trying to channel youth leaders to a greater pinnacle of representivity and legitimacy, even within the highly-developed and more homogenous structures of what's happening in Europe. That is a question which is really in play at the moment. And one of the things which is constantly coming back is that of networks--not traditional associations and organizations gathering around certain issues for a period of time and then maybe moving on-- and youth not allowing themselves to be represented just by that particular issue.
It's been very difficult for the traditional institutions and structures, as they exist in the youth world, to work. And I think that this could actually be a very interesting problematique to take on between, for example, these organizations and what's being proposed here, but to look at, away from an idea of representivity, what kind of youth voices are there, and who do they feel comfortable to represent and how. So I just wanted to bring that up, actually, it's a very constructive point; it's the kinds of issue that need to be talked through for this particular forum.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
In the British Labor Party we used to say to an MP that you couldn't belong to a youth union after you are fifty.

Gavan Titley
Just to follow up on that, within youth programs, the definition of what is youth nowadays ranges from twelve to thirty-five. And it also has to take into account that in many areas of the world, there is no youth. There is earlier work, and it just comes back to some of the things we were talking about in our workshop. So even in the ways in which that constituency is designed is a challenge for the issues that the council wants to address.

Jana Matesová
I would like to point out two interconnected issues. And the one issue which I think connects them. When I look through the presentation of all the three groups I think there is something that is underlying many of our thoughts. Yesterday there were many words said about the deficit of leadership, and I feel it strongly. Actually last year we were supposed to come with these slogans of what are the reasons responsible for the fact that some of the global issues are not resolved. And my answer to that was that it is a deficit of leadership. I think many of us, probably perhaps even all of us, feel that, too. There really is a deficit of vision. And vision about the global issues is probably what many of the current politicians don't understand because global issues are very complex, very comprehensive, and because the information about these issues doesn't reach through the levels of hierarchy to them. If this is the case, it must be very difficult for the political leaders or for leaders on various levels, not necessarily within the political system, to create the vision of the world twenty years from now. Because simply, the issues that are complex already, will be getting, even more complex. The other issue that was raised in our group is that we are all global citizens, and, if we all really feel like global citizens, many of the global issues would be much easier to resolve within the existing structures of democracy. But we are not global citizens, most of us do not yet feel as global citizens, and therefore, we are not really challenging the existing democratic structures sufficiently. The reason why we are not global citizens is again the lack of knowledge and information. So, the huge role that remains for all of us who are aware of global issues is to get more knowledge and to disseminate the knowledge throughout all our channels of information. We need to make it possible for the knowledge to reach both the existing leaders and, of course, the leaders of the future. This is probably the most wonderful part of this gathering, how many young people are here listening to these discussions. So, I think there is a huge, huge role of advocacy, but advocacy as truthful as we can make it.

Jeremy Hobbs
I think one of the things that we need to recognize is that whatever we do will not be perfect. So let's not wait for it to be perfect. I take your point on youth, but we can make ways of it happening. I'm sure we can make it legitimate and I think the other thing is trying to understand that if we have a World Futures Council of a hundred people, maybe that's not enough, Jakob, we won't please everyone. But so long as it's good enough to please enough people, I think that's what we need to move forward. And as long as it's not rigged and manipulated by vested interests, that's also what we need. I think the really important part of this process is to acknowledge that if we're going to tackle global problems, we need civil society to have a legitimate role in that discussion of defining how we analyze a problem and how we approach it. And then it's much easier for us to have the debate with the institutions. And in some cases that debate's going to be quite tough. It might be tough enough to say that institutions shouldn't exist or it might call for reforming institutions. But, unless civil society has the means under a legitimate umbrella, I don't see how we can do it.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Thanks. Can I break my rule and offer one observation which arises from what you've said just now? I think proposing new setups for legitimizing representation of global society, the multilateral institutions, I don't think is very perfect. There have been very little mentions of what the U.N. already does. And secondly, of other institutions I know one which is completely unknown. It's a very old institution, but nobody's heard about it, that's the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which was established in 1888 on a lovely idea somebody had that governments may go to war, but parliamentarians are peaceful people. The parliamentarians meant there would never be another world war; this was said in 1888, anyway. I have been to Inter-Parliamentary Union. It brings together one hundred and fifty parliaments, year after year, it exists in an amalgamated platform inside the U.N. General Assembly. Now, it is surprising that nobody ever heard of it, and nobody ever used it. But I think, when questions of legitimacy are raised, one thing people do concede is that parliamentarians have been elected by the people. All parliaments are free of executive pressure from their own governments. It would be one of the instruments worth thinking about, imperfect as it is, one of the places to lobby would be in IPU, because they could get into U.N. bodies much more directly than other outside bodies. I'm just offering that as an observation, not as a recommendation, I no longer go to IPU, but it is there.

Jakob von Uexkull
I agree and among the consultations which I had, I also met with the director of IPU as a countryman of mine, and when we looked at the parliament initiative, he felt that this was not something which could be integrated into IPU, but he was quite positive about it. I do think that we have a number of commissions which have existed, and which have had pretty broad legitimacy. Although nobody really knows how the members of the Bruntland Commission were chosen, the results were respected.
The problem is, in some ways they were too issue-specific, but the main problem is, they were too short-term. There was no follow-up process. So, whatever happens, you're going to be challenged. I mean, who legitimized the initiative which began the campaign to abolish slavery almost two hundred years ago? These were people who felt this was morally, ethically, unacceptable, and so they took it up against vested interests, and they fought, and if they hadn't raised support among the majority of the population in these countries they wouldn't have got anywhere. But they did, so they were legitimized through the quality of their work, and I think that is the basic way of getting legitimacy.
Because even if you raised five billion dollars, which is the estimated cost of global election for a world parliament, with all its huge problems, people would still challenge its legitimacy, saying how many percentage voted and are you sure that these people knew what they were voting about, and that they weren't bribed, etc., etc. So, basically, you work, try to be transparent, try to be accountable, and then you build up legitimacy. Otherwise, of course, the national parliamentarians will not pick up the recommendations of the council, and nothing will happen. But I think there is a chance of doing it simply because there are so many who would like to see it happen. I mean we could spend a lot of money going and getting ten thousand, a hundred thousand NGOs worldwide to sign up for it. But as somebody asked me recently from the south, “Why?” They are not going to actually be able to help you do it, they support it because they see that it's needed, and it's not going to be globally representative. Even if we had hundred or two hundred people, we're going to do our best to have it globally representative, but somebody's always going to feel left out, and so people aren't going to be selected for lifetime, especially youth leaders. Yes, it's going to be one of the most difficult categories to find, but if you create a World Future Council, of course, we want to have leaders of tomorrow in there. And so we're going to work with the major networks of such youth leaders, and try to identify those who have both the credibility, but also who will be able to stay on course and work in this institution for a number of years. Thank you very much for the comments, and for the critique, because this all is very valuable. What we welcome most of all, of course, because this is an open and small initiative, is, if any of you feel inspired to come and actively work to help to make it happen.

Simonetta Nardin
First, a brief comment on the IPU and parliamentary involvement: The IMF and the World Bank now have increased their involvement with parliaments. And, the more democracies there are, the more the involvement of parliaments, and we now hear much more from MPs in developing countries, for instance, and they sometimes feel that we have done too much with civil society, with NGOs, and not enough with parliamentarians. So this is another form of dialogue that we continue to increase, including with IPU. But, one of the questions that I have is, “How you see the global issues network, World Future Council, etc?”
It seems to me that it fits with what Jean-François Rischard was saying about the need to take quick action and to take one issue, identify who these people are that play a role and then deal with it. If you then, have to go first through the World Future Council, I don't see how it can be done quickly in the way that Jean-François Rischard was saying. So for instance, if we take one issue, I don't see why you need to go through the World Future Council. Now, we have already institutions around, unless we need first to have a discussion about the legitimacy of the institutions, which probably we need to do. Maybe, you just identify the issue and focus on who these people are in civil society. If it's in one country, if it's one issue, then, you choose the people who have been dealing with this, the IMF might be there sometimes, maybe at other times not. But it seems to me that instead of creating something that Jean-François was saying, let's deal quickly with these issues. If you first have to create another body, then it defeats the purpose.

Jeremy Hobbs
Well, I think you partly answered your own question. I mean, if you don't do this, then it won't have any legitimacy and no one will take it seriously. And every time institutions try to shortcut the participation route it falls apart. We can look at all sorts of examples, and I just think, if you really want to get there quickly, do it properly. And doing it properly means having a proper participation process involved. I'm really attracted to his ideas of managing the process, but the missing piece is, how do you get political legitimacy in a context where everyone is deeply skeptical about the interests of big institutions and of powerful governments. And I actually don't think the IMF should be in a commission. I think the commissions, or GIN, should be prepared to have a dialogue with IMF or the World Bank as appropriate, but there actually needs to be some independence.

Simonetta Nardin
How do you make these institutions accountable and responsible? If you identify the issue, and then you say, let's take Iraq as an example and see how it works. Let's take the IMF again. We were talking about the IMF; I work there, but let's say, you want to make the IMF responsible and accountable for what it does. So how can you say, if you just consult with the IMF and not actually have it there, first of all, and how do you identify that institution with which you consult? It might be, as I said, the IMF one day, it might be the High Commissioner for Human Rights on another issue. If you take the issue, identify it, and say to civil society and parliamentarians and business, this is what you should do– a, b, c, and d– and then you come back in six months and say, “Have you done any of these things?” If they're not there the table, how do you make them accountable and responsible?

Anuradha Mittal
When you were talking about this, one of the things that came up was that there is a need to shift the power balance. Right now we have a situation that the problem makers are also the problem solvers, and that is a big legitimacy issue. And so it was to shift the power balance that we need to create an alternative process where you are consulting with agencies such as the IMF and the World Bank, because they've worked on these issues. But one issue is, for example, the World Commission on Dams, which is not considered legitimate to start with, although it was a very important process that took place, its importance came mainly from who commissioned it. So to create that independence, to be able to have some objective analysis in problem-solving happening, you need to look at the IMF or the World Bank, for example, which were agencies of the United Nations until they became the specialized agencies they are today, and ask if they are recreating that power again within the United Nations.

Jeremy Hobbs
Well, just to add a little, I think there's always role confusion. And I think Jean-François is actually saying that GINs are going to set up normative standards and behaviors which, in a sense, enable civil society to tackle member states and the big, multilateral institutions and business. I think, in fact, by producing a process which has global legitimacy through the U.N., through parliamentarians and through civil society, which identifies norms that are supported by those parties, you have a much more powerful tool with which to negotiate with institutions. And, that's the business of bringing power back to ordinary people, to communities who are affected very deeply by those organizations.

Jana Matesová
I think it will always be a case of every institution, that the stakeholders of that institution will force it in some direction and the institution will eventually present their interests. If the institution will prove powerful, it will be subject to challenges, and it will be more likely to be a subject of capture. I honestly think, that in the current world, we have rather too many than too few global institutions with too-broad mandates, and so I am really very skeptical about another institution.
Now, the beauty of what actually, Jean-François Rischard was proposing and not out of the blue, the issues-based problem-solving. Let's go issue by issue: first of all, it's not really out of the blue, it's how many things and many global initiatives are taking place. The World Commission on Dams was mentioned here, and it probably was not the best example, but it was one of the examples of learning. It's been a few years since it worked, but it produced something, it had an impact, it had an outcome. And then there are so many others which are not even challenged for their inefficiency, for example GAVI, Global Alliance on Vaccination and Immunization. There are many other issue-based global solutions which have some core institutional kind of secretariat. It may be one of the existing institutions, it may be an alliance of the existing institutions, it may even be something new, but it would have a sunset clause. This would concentrate experts on that one issue with propose and a solution orientation. And then, through the existing process, the funding is found, the legitimization of that issue is established and the commitments, political and financial, are found.
If we have one global organization, another World Future Council, it will be very difficult for it, in this complex world, to get experts on everything. The senior, the elderly, wise men, will be wise, but not necessarily sufficiently informed in every area of the decision-making. So again, prone to capturing, I really see a big value in the issue-by-issue solutions. I just want to offer one observation, maybe a couple of observations. One is, I'm interested in an early-warning system design for famines, and someone pointed out that all famines have been early-warned. There's no lack of analysis, the problem is implementation. And so we may ask, “In all those twenty issues that Jean-François put forward, do we not already know the solutions?” It's not really the solutions, implementation may be the problem, and the whole problem might be different.
And secondly, in this electronic age, do we really need commissions which meet physically? Can we not have virtual commissions built up? I mean, why should a commission have five people? Why not have a commission of a thousand people. For God's sake, we can electronically build up networks, so these things turn out to be networks rather than commissions of hoary old men. Usually they are hoary old men, and the idea that they can solve anything after all those years is really impossible to believe.

Continued after the coffee break

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Now, we are about to hear two video presentations, one from Vice-President Annette Lu of Taiwan, and the other from His Royal Highness, Prince Hassan of Jordan. They will come on the screen, and will be five minutes each, so I shall first hope that very soon we will have Vice-President Lu's presentation.

Annette Lu
Your Excellency Havel, Lord Desai, Your Royal Highness Hassan, distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen. It is my great honor to be able to speak to you at the prestigious Forum 2000. I wish I could be there personally, but Taiwan 's unique diplomatic situation prevents me from being with you today.
Globalization is happening at an exponential pace. This videoconference is a great example of how advanced technology is bringing the world closer together. Globalization began with the flow of goods, then the flow of money, and followed by the flow of population. With the flow of population, there is a globalization of ideas and values. We have seen the spread of democratic values and the respect for human rights in the world.
On the other hand, globalization has resulted in a rapid depletion of our natural resources, and increasing digitalization has created a wider gap between the digital “haves” and the digital “have-nots.” Therefore, the issues of sustainable development and narrowing the digital divide become ever more important. In our quest for greater technological advancement, we must adopt a humanized approach, and when we speak of humanization, we must address gender balance. For too long, the history of the human race was dominated by “his” stories; and the stories of mankind have been the stories of man only. Let's include both “his”-stories and “her”-stories into the new human stories.
Within this context, what is the role of civil society in a globalized world? I would like to look at the civil society's paradigm of power. The paradigm of the political society is often defined by military might, and the paradigm of the market is defined by the bottom-line and rational self-interest. These are examples of “hard power.” Civil society, however, upholds the paradigm of “soft power.” What is soft power? Soft power consists of these elements: human rights, democracy, peace, love, and technological progress.
The idea of soft power contrasts sharply with the notion of hard power, which is aggressive and destructive. Soft power is constructive and generous. Through the rising soft power of civil society within, the people of Taiwan have created three miracles—an economic miracle, a democratic miracle, and a miracle of peace. Economically, in the last 50 years, Taiwan has transformed itself from a poor, agricultural based economy into a country that enjoys one of the highest credit ratings. Most recently, the World Economic Forum ranked Taiwan 4th among 104 nations in its growth competitiveness, preceded only by Finland, the United States and Sweden.
Politically, in 2000, Taiwan peacefully transferred power from a half-century-long rule by one party to another through an open, democratic election, without any foreign interference or armed conflict. From the early democratic movement to the struggles for international recognition of Taiwan 's sovereignty, civil society transformed Taiwan from an authoritarian regime to a mature democracy, not with guns or money, but with the conviction for human rights and justice. Soft power, rather than hard power, created Taiwan 's democratic miracle. Internationally, Taiwan has maintained 50 years of peace with China, a bullying neighbor who claims that Taiwan is a sacred and inseparable part of itself. In a region plagued by bloodshed and warfare, Taiwan's strength in its soft power is a true miracle of peace. Taiwan is the living testament that soft power is soft, but powerful.
In summary, the role of civil society in a globalizing world is to expand and to strengthen the paradigm of soft power – the power that struggles for human rights, democracy, peace, love and technological progress; the power that fosters human relations and creates harmony and prosperity on earth. Thank you.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Thank you very much Vice-President Lu. We should have next His Royal Highness, Prince Hassan of Jordan.

El Hassan bin Talal
Ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to say that I am a member of the Joint Initiative of the Finnish and Tanzanian governments in the process on globalization and democracy. I would like to thank President Havel for this round table, this forum, at which I have participated for eight sessions. I would like to say that over the years, the partnership between civil society, business, and states for a more democratic and more human globalization, is surely the objective of this activity.
We shall be meeting this year in Delhi, and in February we will hold three back-to-back meetings. I've been invited by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, in my capacity as a member of the South Commission. The South Center is the last south venue for communication. We will be addressing the perspectives of globalization which we regard as man-made along with the irony that its shortcomings have had an alarming trend of being unilateral rather than multilateral. So, I hope that we can address the key issues, which include the fact that as President Halonen has emphasized, capital-intensive jobs– one million euros per job--are not going to solve the unemployment crisis worldwide. The examples of South Asia show us that also low-capital jobs – one thousand euros per job – can be created by millions. These jobs are also ecologically sustainable.
Secondly, I'd like to say that in terms of democracy and free markets, we are mutually supportive, but today we observe a tendency of world markets to undermine democracies. Countries are being blackmailed to reduce taxes for the rich and for companies. For lack of tax revenues, many countries sell off public property and not all has gone well with privatization. In the words of Ernst von Weizsäcker, a co-member of the Club of Rome, there are also limits to privatization, and the Club of Rome strongly emphasizes the need for a strong, international frame of rules for the markets in its publication, the Global Marshall Plan: A Planetary Contract. The origin of the Club of Rome is related to systems theory. Dennis Meadows, in the third edition of Limits to Growth, reconfirmed the danger of systems collapse unless we massively decouple growth from resource and energy consumption. The study has shown that large potential exists for decoupling.
Gunther Pauli from Belgium shows us that systems changes can accomplish much more than a factor of four, and that not at a cost, but at a benefit in terms of jobs, water, timber, and so forth as with the example in Colombia of turning the savannah back into rainforest. But the stark fact remains that more than 1.5 billion are living on less than one dollar a day, and 2.8 billion are living on less than two dollars a day. As it happens, the richest one percent of the world's people receives as much as the poorest 57 percent. Most of these people are in my region, from Marrakesh to Bangladesh, from Calcutta to Casablanca. We have the poorest region in the world, the most populous region in the world, more populous than China, the most dangerous in terms of weapons of mass destruction, and now terrorism, and of course, the most pluralist. And, I'm saddened to say that from 1992 to 2002, over seven and a half trillion dollars have been allocated worldwide for weapons.
I'd just like to express the hope that the British presidency of the EU and of the OECD, the review of the Millennium Development Goals next year, as well as the indications by the French government through President Chirac, will result in a debt write-off internationally. But, it's not only about debt in different parts of the world, it's about developing the Helsinki Citizen's Assembly approach in the context of citizens conferencing, not only the conferencing of talking heads, but the development of a network lobby for change and for a law of peace. We know that we are dealing with so many concessions from the law of war, but unfortunately, there is no call for a new international humanitarian order beyond the General Assembly. A call, in fact, has continued from 1988 to the present day, for a cultural compliance with international humanitarian and human-rights law.
I would like to conclude, before inviting your questions, which I welcome, by saying that after the end of the Cold War, there was an intense debate in military circles about how to apply RMA, or the Revolution in Military Affairs. I would like to suggest that we need the revolution in civil affairs, and I can think of no forum better suited to move in this direction than one led by you, dear friend, Václav Havel, who has shepherded this process, and I thank you and the Sasakawa Peace Foundation for their support. I look forward to interacting with you.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Thank you very much. Your Royal Highness, and Vice-President Lu. We have been meeting here for the last two days and the best way I can summarize our conclusions is that the world needs a rights-based approach to the solution of its problems and we need to find ways of more legitimate representation of the civil society in the solution of these problems. I would be pleased to have your reactions to that conclusion. Thank you.

El Hassan bin Talal
May I react by saying that I would sincerely hope that the concept of global civil society is developed in practical steps, along the lines of the Helsinki Citizens' Assembly. Let me point out that our West Asian region is a misnomer. We are meeting in December; the Arab Thought Forum and the Economic and Social Council for West Asia, and then in February in Delhi with the representatives of Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka, with the hope of developing a South Asian club. I think that it is this inter-societal manifestation that will begin to address the global agenda, the millennium goals. So we are trying to be practical, and one last point would be to adopt, of course, educational programs, teaching by analogy, such as the Erasmus through Socrates and Minerva programs of Europe, but we do need a European input, particularly an Eastern European input, for those of you who have joined Europe, I think we need to standardize with concepts of intra-regional cooperation.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Vice-President Lu? Our question to you was, the conference has decided that we would like to see a rights-based approach to solution of world's problems, and that we need new ways of legitimate representation of the civil society onto the commissions to solve these problems. What is your reaction?

Annette Lu
First of all, I would like to address the quotas in education; not only for technical knowledge, but for the possibility to take part in world affairs. Secondly, I would urge a world effort so that the door is open to everybody on earth, regardless of gender, race, or nationality. It is only a recent effort, only a recent opportunity, that men and women can be encouraged to take part in world affairs.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Thank you very much for that. I really thank you for taking time out from your busy day to come and address this meeting. Thank you. We're now open again for our debate, and Sylvia wanted to speak, but Martin has to make an announcement.

Martin Bútora
Thank you very much. Actually, this is an announcement, very short, but I hope an important announcement, which I am doing in the name of the organizers of the conference. It means, in the name of President Václav Havel and Oldřich Černý, the director of Forum 2000 Foundation. And I would like to ask you to pay attention to a very specific and urgent issue which was touched upon briefly at the beginning of our conference by President Havel, which was discussed in the workshop and which is hanging in the air, and it is the situation in Byelorussia. I think we have been discussing a lot about the diagnosis of civil society, about the visions, about the projects, and we simply shouldn't keep silent about the brutal violation of civil society in Byelorussia. President Havel has written a statement which you can find over there, and obviously it's voluntary. Anyone who would like to join this initiative, anyone who would like to co-sign it, he or she can do it. We all remember how important it was for us, the solidarity in the times when we were struggling against authoritarian regimes. President Havel prepared this statement against the violation of civil society and freedoms in Byelorussia in referendum, so please, whoever wants to sign or co-sign can do it there. Thank you.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
I'm requesting President Havel to read out this statement, because although it is over there, he's here, and if he could read it out to us, it would be much better in first person. Thank you.

Václav Havel
As organizers of the international conference Forum 2000 – Bridging Global Gaps, which aims to highlight the discrepancies of our world today, all forms of oppression and all denials of human dignity, we resolutely protest against the manipulation of the referendum and elections in Byelorussia last weekend. Long term pressure by the powers that are against independent citizens´ structures and political opposition, imposing absurd requirements on those who are not subjects of central control, the unfounded exclusion of candidates and whole groupings, fines and existential harassment, are totally inconsistent with the standards of the civilized world. Our experience with communist totality makes us extraordinarily sensitive to similar behavior.
We appeal to multinational missions of observers to become aware of why they were established. We appeal to governments of European Countries to remind themselves of their international obligations and to fulfill them. We demand that they do not recognize the Byelorussian referendum and elections and that they let President Lukashenko know for sure that he will not become their partner as long as proper and regular elections do not take place. Otherwise we will all become undignified partners in this farce.
Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Thank you very much. The floor is open now.

Šimon Pánek
I'll speak Czech, so please take your headphones.
I would like to come back to the program of our working group, that discussed the question of global economy and civil society. We have finally agreed upon those few basic points, including the right for protection, as far as the few basic needs are concerned. The thing we haven't discussed, and I think we could have, is the question of why the dialogue between the world organizations, primarily those economy related, and civil society, the one represented by those of us present here, however you want to call it, doesn't work better. What can be done in order for the dialogue to continue? I personally, don't support revolutionary methods and I think that even if we institute the World Future Council, it will not change the world order or globalization and its tools. To change, I think that we need to work with it, and the best approach to this issue is dialogue.
I would be interested, if somebody can elaborate on the question, what prevents this dialogue from becoming more effective, what prevents civil society from improved articulation of claims for basic human rights, including the right to food, life, health, and security. Because, I think that we can agree on those even with the representatives of economical organizations. I am interested, what to do in order for the voice, that is for example heard at the Forum, to be heard even in those strongest organizations. Thank you.

Jana Matesová
I will also speak Czech, if I may. I was called up by Mr. Pánek, in the presence of President Havel, as host whose invitation we all greatly value, and I will speak in his and my mother tongue.
I think that I can agree with many principles and ideas that Mr. Pánek said. I think that even civil society can agree on those, even with international organizations, and even though these ideas are not implemented.
And Mr. Rischard, who is a representative of management of one of those bigger organizations (while I am a representative of one of the shareholders) answered the question yesterday. We can agree on many things. After all it is the shareholders that get to decide. That is how that is, so as far as there is a basic approach to enforce the ideas that bother and burn the civil society, even through the legitimacy of national governments and national democratic systems. Obviously, global or international institutions play an important role in connecting that notion of the world. Mr. Hobbs yesterday spoke about how Oxfam is a great network; associations of civil society organizations with a similar missions in many countries of the world–almost a half of the world. Oxfam is trying to influence, operate and help American civil society organizations–to help them for example in the questions, that have been often mentioned here, and where USA stands on the road to global consensus, so that they would have more arguments and a stronger force in influencing their own legislative and executive representations.
But for now, I think that the most effective way of pursuing this opinion, which is worrying, that the civil society goes in two directions is to, first of all, join those opinions around the world, which means networking between the civil society organizations, and the second is the influence on the democratic and political system in their own country.

Jiřina Šiklová
I will also speak in Czech. I will reiterate, what I have said in our section. Civil society cannot be enforced; it cannot be imported or exported. Well, maybe imported, but there have to be certain conditions. Therefore, why shouldn't we draw upon our experience? Experiences from the Helsinki conference, which adopted certain conclusions, thirty years ago, next year it will be thirty years. And that means, to agree, not only we here, but also through discussions to force the governments, so that they would, adopt, just like thirty years ago, some minimal framework, and to enforce it and put it in law.
And then, if there will be sufficient and strong enough civil society in the respective countries, by drawing upon that framework, civil society will be able to take what it needs from that, just as the similar thing happened and helped the opposition in the, what we now call, post-communist countries. Although in some Soviet republics of the former Soviet bloc, civil society was weak and wasn't able to draw upon this. In some countries, such as ours, Poland, Hungary, etc., we were able to take what we needed to pursue and what we were able to accept.
The same thing happened with respect to women's rights Nairobi 85, Beijing 95, and another meeting will be in 2005. If the civil society is strong, it can reach for this legal framework. That is all. Thank you.

Colin Hines
I think if we're going to extend and increase the degree of civil society involvement in some of the issues we're debating, we've got to make sure it's very relevant. And although general terms about human rights, etc., are well-accepted, who would be against it? It's when it actually begins to affect people's daily lives that you begin to get some support. And that's why the question, which we were raising in our group; the right to protect, is a very important right for those that are concerned, for example, about agriculture. Now, I was very interested that the first group made the statement, “Economic rights include the right to economic security.” If you start talking about the rights to economic security, then you get beyond farmers into trade unionists, and so, I'd be very interested to hear from the first group, because our group spent a lot of time discussing the likely range of the right to protect. I'd also be interested to know from the first group what the discussions were around economic security, or whether that might be extended in this discussion, because I think it would be a crucial way to bring far greater numbers of people, both individuals and in organized groupings, into our debates.

Beryl Levinger
I should begin by saying that we didn't choose to be very specific as to what these rights are. I'd rather focus on some of the things we did say about these rights. Specifically, we looked at the Millennium Development Goals, Declaration of the Rights of the Child, CEDAW Convention to Eliminate Discrimination Against Women, as illustrative, along with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Of the rights that we were specifically addressing, in each of those conventions or treaties, in fact, there is some inkling as to what might be included in economic rights as well. But insofar as we discussed the topic at all, what we were really talking about would be the right to live in a society where the Millennium Development Goals would be recognized. And while we didn't say this so explicitly, that essentially is what we were talking about when we addressed the topic of poverty reduction and recognized that one of the functions of civil society might be to address poverty reduction, although in our deliberations, we weren't going to discuss how.

Jakob von Uexkull
We had in our working group, despite its very varied membership, sort of an agreement that huge corporations, private corporations, are controlling governments. And so the dialogue with power, which was recommended, we've had for many years. These dialogues take place all the time, but they need to have a goal, otherwise they will just be business as usual.
We've had a global power setup now for ten – twenty years, which has claimed to be able to solve the world's big challenges, and they have failed. So I think you need to look also at the history here and there wasn't a dialogue with power which changed the situation here. That was just a small part of it. It was delegitimizing illegitimate authority. And that began by creating, as I see it, other institutions of legitimacy, a different pillar of legitimacy. I think we agreed today and over the last two days, that there is this ethical legitimacy missing in the present order, so we need to build institutions of ethical integrity.
They don't have to be completely new institutions, but we need to build a process, where moral power again becomes valued, and moral power simply means that our values as citizens become predominant. We recognize, that we're all consumers, but that's just a very small part of us, but at the moment, especially on the global level, we're only represented as consumers. So we need to create a process, a framework, which speaks up for our values as citizens and for the interests of future generations, because that, so far, simply does not exist, and without that, also the dialogue will be a dialogue between the powerless and the powerful, and that isn't usually successful. Now, will this proposal for the World Future Council solve all our problems immediately? Of course it won't, there is nothing which will, but it will rebuild trust, and this trust is sort of a prerequisite, I think, for taking the kind of action we need to take now, urgently, to solve our challenges.

Jeremy Hobbs
Just on Šimon's comments, I think the important thing for civil society is to connect with each other. And Jana, it was very kind of you to mention Oxfam, but really, Oxfam is a very small player. The global movements are very big, they're very diverse. By their very nature, they are not controllable, nor should they be. And I think we have to create the space for freedom of association. That's why World Social Forum is so important, and why the frustration of people who want to get a result out of the Forum indicates their misunderstanding of the purpose of the Forum. I think the challenge for us in the movements in the NGOs is how we reconnect with formal politics. And that's going to happen at many levels, and I think some of the proposals that have come out today start to address that. But reconnecting with formal politics doesn't mean that we become co-opted by formal politics, and that, for us, is always going to be a political tension, if you take the framework that both Colin and Jakob have described.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Can I offer an observation here again? I'm sorry to do it as a moderator, but we talk about power and the powerless, but I have seen not very much examination of where power comes from. An example heard over again was the Helsinki Accord – that was in the context of the Cold War. And that was underpinned, in some sense, using the vague word underpinned, by nuclear power. There was a threat, a real threat of annihilation. And at some stage in that delicate balance, the Helsinki Accord came, partly, I think, because the Soviet Union thought, nobody's going to take it seriously. They were very cynical about it. They considered it something they thought nobody's going to use. And the interesting thing was that the civil society grew up and used this little window of opportunity very efficiently, but in a sense it was because the powerful slipped up.
Currently we have a unipolar system. And there are real difficulties of having the powerful necessarily concede power. They don't want to concede power, and the real question is, in what ways can a global citizens' society movement or some technical reformer, whatever it is, make some difference. In one way, of course, to again use the example of Helsinki, is that some part of the powerful system may have an interest to align against other parts of the powerful system.
It is not monolithic, you know, we could talk about global corporations, but they're not monolithic. They're also competing with each other. And sometimes they're subject to some regulation. And so again, we should not accept our rhetoric that all governments are captured by all corporations. If that would be true, Enron would not have had a bankruptcy and Shell would not have had to pay a huge sum of money to the SEC for lying about its reserves. And Merrill Lynch has paid money, and Citibank has paid money, so I don't think we should take the view that all the governments are captured by all corporations. That is broadly true but it's not true in the detail, and it's in the detail that global society will have its impact. We don't have armies to fight, but we do have some kind of expertise and some sort of sense of where to crucially hit, and once again, I'm using the analogy of what happened after Helsinki. A very weak civil society will strengthen itself by opportunistically striking where there is a gap. Rather than taking the enemy head-on and I think that's a very useful analogy to remember, because the one way to overcome power is by being smart, and being smart means you really got to exploit little gaps.
Who's going to go next? Shall I make another provocative statement? I was going to say to Colin, the problem is not the right to protect. Everybody has the right to protect, far too much. My problem as a European citizen is that the European Union protects agriculture far too much, and I pay for it. Not only that, in the course of ruining Third World agriculture, but I would like to awaken everybody with the right to protect all of the European Union.

Colin Hines
Well, I'd like to take your point about little gaps, first of all, because it's very interesting how this right to protect has been called for, first of all, by movements in India. Huge-scale agricultural and trade unionists have called for re-introduction of qualitative restrictions in order to protect their livelihoods, because they know that imports from developed and developing countries, not just services from Europe, are wrecking their economy. So you had civil society demanding a re-introduction in the world's biggest democracy. You've also had, very recently, in the World Trade Organization, governments from developed countries who used to think that their future lay in exporting textiles to the rich countries. They've now found that, on January 1, their previous markets are going to disappear, probably very rapidly, to their major competitor, China.
So you have some real questioning beginning at the government level about open markets, and also for many, many years, at a grass-roots level. And so, I think that there's, when you add to that, as I've said here before, the question of the likely continuously high oil prices and the implications that that has for long-distance trade. Then, you're going to have a very interesting potential for dramatic change, and if you can ally that dramatic change with a perception amongst large swathes of civil society in rich and poor countries, that they can be helped by the right to protect, then you're actually going to, I think, add that voice to the disruptions that are anyway coming in the international economy. So it should be some interesting times. I predict that when you get together this time next year that the cost of oil and the rising clamor for protection against Chinese exports (I'm not saying that to be anti-Chinese, because we all know, there's some appalling conditions in China, both socially and environmentally.) is going to change the entire debate over the next year, and very fast.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Allow me two observations. The price of oil is not high. In real terms it's lower than it was in 1973. I think the whole complaint about the price of oil being high is a conspiracy because I wish the price of oil was much higher, because we would get less pollution in the world. I do believe the price of oil is going to be back at thirty dollars by the time we meet here next time. Leave that aside; right now the price of oil has been lowering for the last ten years or whatever.
Secondly, you know, in India, for forty years, in protecting manufacturing, agriculture was taxed. So you protect one thing, you hurt something else. With Bush protecting steel imports to win an election, he hurt American manufacturing industry. So when you protect, you're protecting a certain special interest. There are very few protections I know of, which are protecting the poor people. Protection usually protects producers and exploits other people. Yes, if you want to enhance social security, or people security, protection should be a legitimate right, but it should not be a right which helps some manufacturers against consumers and against other manufacturers, and I mean, that's the biggest danger there is.
I worry much more about people saying China is a big danger. Stop China; that's what Seattle was all about. The AFL/CIO wanted to keep China from coming into WTO, of course they're anti-Chinese. Why would rich countries want poor countries to be richer? Why would I, the Detroit worker, want to give up my job so that some badly-paid Chinese can have a job? Of course I don't want to, so I'll complain about conditions of labor in China, of course I do. Why? Because I am protecting my good job. I think one of the most brilliant things globalization has done is how Asia has eliminated a lot of poverty. Not all, but a lot of people are less poor in China and India thanks to globalization. It would not happen otherwise.

Anuradha Mittal
If you're going to have a debate on semantics, then let me point out that in Chapter 11 of NAFTA, a corporation can protect its future profits. Having worked with Colin all these years, what they're really talking about, and check me if I'm wrong, is really about protection of livelihoods and dignity. I don't think Seattle was about China; Seattle was about this race to the bottom.
China is a prime example as the best student of the financial institutions, that's what they want. Export more, increase the economy, GDP, and earn more foreign exchange. So Seattle was actually to challenge that race to the bottom, which is not about China, but really a challenge to the international financial institutions, which have sacrificed people's dignity and their livelihoods. And yes, there is a lot of rhetoric about, look how wonderful Asia is now. Look at the amazing economy, and the call-center economy in India, which has improved people's lives, an economy where you can't even mention your name or your accents disappear when you call American consumers. So I think there's a larger question here, which is one of dignity, of not just a third world or a second world or one world, but, why do we have two worlds and one humanity?

Jakob von Uexkull
I think one of Colin's books is called “The New Protectionism“, and I think we certainly don't need the old protectionism, and of course, the monolith of the opposition is not monolithic, but I do think we are faced with a unique process. There are parallels to the Helsinki process, and there was an attempt to create a similar movement based on the Charter, which went through a huge process of consultation. The idea was that in Johannesburg, this would then be adopted as some sort of soft law, and also be brought into the educational systems to educate for environmental awareness and responsibility. Of course that was blocked by the votes of the U.S., which was clever enough to realize that this might threaten implicitly the American way of life.
I think what we do need to be aware of, and what shocks me almost weekly now, is the speed of environmental degradation worldwide, which is so much faster than what I would have predicted. And you know, I sat on the board of Greenpeace, ten, fifteen years ago, and we didn't predict what is happening now. The scariest thing is that often the scientists will say, we don't even understand what's happening. This of course is not just an environmental issue; it means that there are more environmental refugees already, than political refugees. It means that an accident in a nuclear power plant could happen tomorrow, making large parts of Europe uninhabitable, which obviously would lead to absolutely massive migration, which nobody could stop.
That the fact that we seem to have reached the peak of global oil resources, again was ridiculed a few years ago, now you can find it being seriously discussed on the economic pages. That means that we are in a situation where we urgently need to create other institutions, other pillars of legitimacy to carry us through this transition, this most difficult journey which humanity has ever undertaken. That includes the peoples' right to protect themselves and to protect their life's security, to protect their life quality to the maximum extent possible and to protect environmental security.
There's one opinion poll in the U.K. where eighty percent of the people say they think that local and regional markets should have the right to protect themselves against the global market. That doesn't mean they want to abolish the global market or substitute all imports, but it means that they want this right. And I think that is something we have to listen to, because it goes totally against the present global order. But where is the global order headed? In the main German conservative paper, the Frankfurter Allgemeiner, a few months ago, there was a statement that if there was a global election today, one person – one vote, between Bush and Osama bin Laden, Osama bin Laden would beat Bush, and probably other Western statesmen too. I think this is true, and it's terrible.
I think that most people in the world would like a third alternative. And we need to build that alternative, and that means building new institutions, building whatever is required from the bottom up. And it takes a lot of imagination, but we can't just stop and say, oh well, you know, let's just continue this dialogue which we've had, let's continue with the existing institutions, maybe some of them do need to be abolished. But I would plead against failure of imagination, because we are going to be faced with a situation very rapidly, where we are not going to have business as usual. We are either going to have a descent into obscurantism, intolerance, people fighting for scarcer resources, developing, looking for scapegoats, etc., etc., or we can create a sustainable world order. Thank you.

Martin Bútora
We are more and more discussing economic aspects and I think it's important, because actually, when we in the first group introduced this concept of economic security, we were in fact thinking of human dignity, so this was the basis. But if we are talking about this, and as I was listening to Jakob's visionary project for the future commented on by some others, a possible metaphor came into my mind for what we are doing right now, discussing right now, and what we could perhaps end at. I feel honored to use in this metaphorical way the concept which was developed by Václav Havel when he spoke “o moci bezmocných” about the power of the powerless, and then after spending certain years in the office, he came with another metaphor, which was about “bezmoci mocných”. Yes, it refers to the powerlessness of the power holders.
I think this is a great metaphor, and if the institutions and actors of civil society can do something, they can bridge the gap between these two shores. And both the concept of the World Future Council as well as the concepts developed at the beginning with global issues network, and many, many others, could perhaps help us to find also an understandable metaphor why all these activities are so important. Then we can discuss the details, and we can share our perspectives, but I think we also need a metaphorical concept for the broader audience through which we could address them, through which we could attract them to our future endeavors, and through which we could simply promote and support what we feel means a real and genuine civil society. Thanks.

Jorge Castańeda
Thank you; just a quick comment on our discussions in room three or Workshop Three. Though I fully subscribe to the general thrust of what our summary says, I have a very brief disclaimer which I'd like to make, and which I think goes a little bit into what we were discussing yesterday, and that, I think, is worthwhile recalling. In particular, regarding the debate on NAFTA that there was in the United States ten years ago, what I tried to suggest in our group was, that there are two visions of all of this. To be very schematic and simplistic, I called them the revolutionary vision and the reformist vision.
The revolutionary vision being essentially that of those who would like to change the system, who do not accept the system, and the reformist vision being that of those who believe that for better or worse, the system is inevitable and that the best that can be done is to improve it. And that it's important to try and find those points of encounter between these two visions, which is where we can work together. Because if we don't find those points of encounter, each of those two sides will continue on their road, and unquestionably, each one will be weaker without the other than it would be with the other, even on those limited points of encounter.
I thought back on the NAFTA debate, the North American Free Trade Agreement debate in the United States and Mexico, now twelve years ago. There were some of us who thought it was important, given that there would be a NAFTA, that it be the “least-worst” possible NAFTA, or the best possible NAFTA. And there were others who wanted to take the opposition to the NAFTA to the extreme of not suggesting any improvements in it, because that, in a sense, meant sanctioning it or accepting it. Well, there was, of course, a NAFTA, there will be a NAFTA at least as far as our lifetimes are concerned, forever. That's a big word, but for the next twenty years, there will be a NAFTA. And, at least twenty years then afterwards, I don't know, my son‘s around here somewhere, maybe he will see the day when it will be abrogated, but for the moment, it won't. But the NAFTA we have is of course a much “less-good” NAFTA than the one we would have had if we had worked together on these specific aspects like immigration, like structural cohesion, like supranational institutions. Of course, we would have become committed to it, and we would have been compromised by it, and we would have been unable to continue to oppose it, if we had gotten some of the things that we wanted. You can't have it both ways. I think the lesson there is, that we probably should have worked together; those who opposed NAFTA at all costs, and those of us who thought that under certain conditions it was acceptable. We should have found those points of encounter. In the same way, I think, today, and that's just to come back to our discussions in Group Three, I continue to think that it is more useful for us to try and find those points of encounter, which by definition are going to be unsatisfactory to both sides. They will take people like me further than I would like to go, inevitably, and they will take others less far, much less far, than they would like to go. But in one case, we can, I think, actually get some things done. In the other case, if at least we go back to the NAFTA debate, I think it becomes clear that it's difficult to get anything done just with the stance of questioning or rejecting the system, as noble as that cause may be.

Jana Matesová
Thank you, I would like to return to question or issue raised, on where the power comes from. Let me make two quick comments. One of them is on economic security or the right of economic protection, which actually, in economic terms, is defined as a right to a dignified living, i.e., a right to have access to opportunity that helps us to make our livelihood in a dignified way. The other one is on WTO and Seattle, and I think whether it was an objective, or that everybody understands that this was the effective result; the effective result actually was about China. And it was about profits of some large corporations, two of them located in Seattle, who were helped to benefit from the export taxations for several more years. Whatever was the objective of the movement there, this was the result.
I wanted to talk about where the power comes from, because I think many of us feel that we have urgent global issues that cannot be resolved on a national level and that are not being resolved, and we don't have that much time for them before they backfire. Therefore we have to find a way to work in alliances, a way to listen to each other and a way to work together. The reason why it hasn't happened so far is that we aren't effective enough against the existing power dynamics.
I guess part of the issue really deals with the fact that in the past fifteen years the world has gone through two very significant transitions of power. It was a world of the Iron Curtain, and the power structures were very much based on the assumption we have a power, we have the Iron Curtain and it threatens the security of the world. So, we basically have to focus on the thrust of all the actions to be against the enemy behind the Iron Curtain. We are not in this situation now, and for some time, the global world was really lacking an appropriate global institutional design to resolve new issues.
Coincidentally, it was also a time of technological revolution, which brought information technology to new levels benefiting significantly the corporations. Corporations are very quick and effective in using information; they are subject to competitive pressure, so they are very quick in finding lean ways to address what really hurts them. And they are very good in articulating what their economic interests are and in making governments understand. They are better at this than we are. I think this tells us that we have to. Speaking as a civil society representative, although I perhaps am on the other side – on the side of the governments, we have to be able to be as effective as the corporations are.
Obviously the issue is that the global world doesn't have rules that can be enforced on these global economic powers. I think there is a huge power in information, which goes both ways. The information has value for those that can use it and it has negative value – a cost – for those lacking the information. Part of the interest is not articulated, simply because people don't know. We don't have many world citizens. Not many people feel like global citizens, because they don't know what the global issues are and that they are in their own interest. I think that we have it on every national level or local level. Most of us here from developed countries have an issue of pension reforms and it is very difficult to articulate to citizens that it is actually in the interest of every one of us to have a reasonable pension reform.
Some of the issues we cannot articulate well and information gaps make it difficult to push and challenge the power structures. And I think that there is a huge role for civil society as well as fora like this to fill some of the information gaps. But we are in another transition, in the past several years as the global world is concerned, and that's the issue of terrorism. Someone privatized war, someone privatized the right to threaten physical security of people. Fear, as was said yesterday, has tremendous power, and again there are interests behind that fear which are using or misusing the power. And I am not so sure that the discussion, even the one that we had now, is relevant for the changed power structure of today including the power of fear.

Jeremy Hobbs
I spoke at a right-wing think tank business breakfast, which I've decided I won't ever do again. And what struck me was the challenge to NGO legitimacy by corporate types. Their argument with me was, “Well Oxfam, you're very influential because you're a reasonable NGO,” which I challenged. “And, you are much too close to developing country governments. They shouldn't be allowed to get your advice.” And the corporations have large delegations in the WTO, they have lots of informal lobby processes, and they have enormous access to power. It's as simple as that. If you count up all the corporate lobbies in Brussels versus all the NGOs, you're talking thousands versus a handful.
I think part of the problem is transparency. I actually think business is hopeless at issue management. When they make a mistake, they really make a mistake. And we're very good at exploiting that, but what we don't know, we can't deal with. And, I don't think it's our responsibility, in the end, to make them transparent. I think it's the responsibility of governments. And that's why I'm so angry about what happened with the U.N. norms. These norms that were developed for business and were based on existing human rights law as it affects to private-sector behavior have been systematically undermined by corporations and governments. So, governments who've signed on to the Universal Declaration, who've signed all the covenants and treaties, nevertheless don't want business to be held accountable. From my point of view, I want Australian companies operating in Indonesia to operate to Australian standards; in Australia they would not be allowed to get away with what they do in Indonesia. I think it's a pretty simple proposition. And so I think corporate power is an enormously big problem. I totally agree, Lord Desai, that it is not monolithic, there are some good guys, there's an initiative led by our president, Mary Robinson, called the Business Leaders‘ Initiative on Human Rights, where a number of very big companies are trying to model and pilot the U.N. norms, and I think those are very positive things.
But my experience in this business is that people will not change their behavior, if they have a vested interest, without pressure. And that leads me to your point, about how we coordinate amongst NGOs. There is clearly a role for abolitionists who want to basically get rid of the structures, just as there is a role for those who think reform is most expedient. That's about tactics. If we have the same objective, which is about justice, then I think we can come together, and indeed, in Cancun, we did that with the so-called Singapore issues, which were going to inflict a whole new raft of market opening upon developing countries, when the developing countries had said, “We do not want to talk about this,” let alone have it up as a negotiation point. The NGOs and the civil-society movements came together and very effectively prevented the Singapore issues from being taken any further. And I think we're getting much better at coordinating, whether it's through Our World Is Not For Sale or other mechanisms. We don't agree about everything. Colin and I don't agree about the extent of protection, we support protection to a point, but not to the same extent, but I think in terms of the negotiations and the debates, we can find enough common ground to actually have quite a powerful impact. And I think that's the challenge ahead of us.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
You're going to have to begin to wind up, because we're getting towards five o'clock. I think my provocative statements made lots and lots of people say lots of things, so that is good.

Jakob von Uexkull
Just two comments, first, on what Jana said about terrorism. I think we have to bear in mind the proportions. The number of children who die in the world every day from hunger and preventable diseases is about ten times the number of the victims of 9/11, so it's important to bear in mind that the situation was there before 9/11, and it's still there.
Regarding Jorge's comments on revolution and reformism, people sort of normally like to think reformists are the ones with common sense, and it's important to remember that in that context. NAFTA was, of course, a revolution to people that threatened people's sort of community security; their communities. Many people felt a threat to the environment, which meant their livelihoods, the survival of their children. And many people I know are value conservatives. In Austria, for example, I work very closely with the Christian Democrats, or the people's party, who share much of this analysis, now they don't all practice this, but it's important to realize that this distinction between reformists and revolutionaries, between right and left, doesn't really work anymore, and sometimes the challenges are such that you just have to be open for radical change, whether that makes you a revolutionary or not.
Sometimes I think we're happy that it was the revolutionaries who won. I remember in May 1989, I was a member of the European Parliament, and I was in Moscow at the Helsinki Conference, hearing the West German government representative telling his East German colleague that nobody in the West was thinking of changing the status of Berlin. And obviously, he was reformist, but the people thought differently, and the Wall fell less than six months later, so there is a time for rapid change also. There's a time when the reformists were obviously wrong, and we're glad that they didn't succeed.

Beryl Levinger
I appreciate that last comment in particular, because the things I'm going to say are going to make me sound like a conservative, and in fact, I see myself as a quite liberal person. I want to start out with what I think is the myth of Seattle, since Seattle has been invoked several times here. The general premise at Seattle, first of all, was that globalization is unequivocally bad. And the second general myth associated with this is that Seattle was a gathering of like-minded individuals who showed people's power. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The people who were in Seattle represented many groups that would have nothing to say to each other under normal circumstances: environmentalists, labor unionists, small business holders, farmers who didn't want to compete in a world economy. These were not groups that had a positive platform in particular. What they set out to do, and they were obviously quite successful, was to make it impossible for a particular set of conversations to proceed smoothly. They didn't have, never had, a consensus platform on which they agreed. There wasn't any particular set of issues around which consensus could ever have been achieved. So, I don't think that Seattle is the paradigm of what it is that we seek to create. Because, putting it in very simplistic language, Seattle may have been successful in derailing a conversation, but it didn't create anything. It only destroyed something, and whether that thing that was destroyed should have been destroyed, is something we could also discuss. That's the first point I wanted to make.
The second point is, and again, I feel almost uncomfortable saying this. There has been an orientation in this discussion which is unabashedly anti-globalization, anti-corporate contribution to development. And I think there have been numerous abuses of corporate power, and there is a very, very well-documented set of statistics from UNICEF and from UNDP that certainly show that people are severely penalized, the most marginalized in society are several penalized through globalization.
What we haven't done a very good job at, is capturing where, in fact, globalization benefits an emerging group of people who were formerly impoverished. And what it would take for the advantages of globalization to reach ever-greater numbers, and I think that this is an intellectual task that we haven't chosen to embrace.
Two more very quick points: We've talked about corporate transparency. I'm very, very, interested now to see a parallel movement in place, which also hasn't been discussed at this meeting, which is NGO transparency. Take the study of the One World Fund in Britain, for example, which is not a right-wing group. Unlike a similar study done by the American Enterprise Institute in America and the Institute for Public Affairs in Australia, which were two very right-wing groups, and I'm dismissing what they have to say on the subject, the One World society is definitely not right-wing. They did comparisons in terms of transparency, looking at corporations, multi-national institutions, and global NGOs, and in fact, global NGOs tended to be the group that was the least transparent among the groups that were studied, and the results of this are available at oneworld.org.
Last point, we haven't talked very much about the responsibility of local governments, local national authorities, in creating the frameworks for the economic rights that we've embraced. We've tended to focus on the current world order, multilateral institutions, international institutions and their lack of agility in addressing problems and the importance of civil society as well, but I don't think we've placed sufficient responsibility on those nation states that continue to make choices that are inimical to the best interests of their citizens.

Colin Hines
It's very interesting, all this Seattle stuff. I suppose it depends where you were at the time. I was in Seattle, and what struck me about it was the common theme. And indeed this happened in discussions on the marches and rallies at the marches where you heard people from developing countries talking about the need to protect their livelihoods. You heard people from developed countries about the need to protect their livelihoods. And I think Americans have got a right to have jobs, and you heard about the need to protect the environment. What we were pro was the ability to protect livelihoods and protect the environment. And we didn't just stop a conversation; we slapped the face of a large number of people who had no idea that there were people out there with a different world view.
And since then, there has been considerable concentration on detailed alternatives. The revolutionaries aren't anti; the revolutionaries want a different thing. I'm looking forward to the North American Local Trade Agreement emerging, where you actually have a situation where you have a judicious mixture between the economies of Canada and the United States and Mexico. Not with the aim of being ruthlessly competitive between them, but actually rebuilding their own economies, and the same thing can happen everywhere, on the old basis of my enemy's enemy is my friend. If, as many people feel, the huge transnational companies have the ears of government, and indeed have brought governments to their knees in terms of exercising ever more limited democratic rights for the majority of their people and if we start to unite around the need to protect livelihoods and protect the environment, the methodology for doing that is directly opposite to the power base of the transnational companies; it is the ability to play countries and workers off against each other. If you make protection of livelihoods and the environment a key priority, then business has to get back to what it should be doing, which is making a very nice, very adequate living, but from within the construct of insuring a maximum number of livelihoods and the maximum protection of the environment. That would, I think, get far more people into the debate. People understand protecting of the livelihoods. They understand protecting the environment. Many of the other things international gatherings talk about are not on most people's radar screens.

Anuradha Mittal
Sorry, as we're getting close to five I wasn't going to say anything; but just about Seattle --I wasn‘t just in Seattle as one of the many, many people who did organize Seattle. I agree with you, as I said yesterday, that the people who came to Seattle were a very diverse movement, which even Rand Corporation acknowledged. It was a swarm of bees. There was not one leader. There was not just one cause. But I think there is a myth, which has again been perpetrated about why Seattle happened or the talks collapsed. Talks collapsed not just because people did not allow delegates to get from the hotels to the conference center. In the end the talks collapsed because the Third World delegates walked out, because there was no democratic participation and discussion, because there were green rooms happening, the same reason why Cancun failed. You had protestors ten kilometers away. Cancun failed because leaders from ACP countries said that no deal is better than the deal that's being offered. No wonder Times of India was reporting a moral victory for Third World, whereas western governments and their media were reporting: “We were trying to bring development to Third World countries and they don't want it.” So this is really about dialogue and participation, where governments and delegates want a real seat at the table, where we see some movement as when you have a sneak attack, for example, in Geneva. Otherwise, there's no movement on these talks. Every time there's been a real gathering with participation, whether it was Seattle or whether it was Cancun, there's been no movement. Until we have democratic process, trade good or bad, it cannot move forward till it brings people with it.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Okay, I think we're now at about ten minutes remaining, I'm going to give President Havel the last word. And I want to go around the table and see if anybody wants to make any last statements.

Jakob von Uexkull
I've made enough statements.

Sabah Al-Rayes
Thank you. This is my first time here, and I would like to thank President Havel for giving me this opportunity to be here. I've been to many conferences and forums before, but this has been, I'd say, really one of the most stimulating forums that I have attended and I've learned a lot. I didn't do much talking, but I listened a lot, and I really appreciate this opportunity, to listen and learn. Thank you.

Jana Matesová
If I may, because Jakob interpreted my words in a way that I wasn't thinking about at all, I think we shouldn't really underestimate the fact that the threat of terrorism is misused, it is used and misused, and also it creates a very significant constraint that we haven't been living in before. The fact is, as Beryl said, there have been many, many very positive effects of development recently, in the past twenty years, not only in absolute terms, but also in relative terms. There was such a number and proportion of people lifted out of poverty as never before in history. Never before in the entire human history have there been such significant achievements, but there are still huge challenges. And it has never been so difficult, in modern human history, to raise awareness about global issues of poverty, of powerlessness, as in these past three years.
The funding per capita, per dollar of GDP in the world, is the lowest in modern human history. So yes, there are people now manipulating our fear; the ones who cause it and the groups that misuse it. They use the argument that they are protecting us against terrorism as justification for not creating enough jobs. We cannot allow this issue to get out of the scope, and there definitely is a new power structure in the whole decision-making process on the global level.
Otherwise, I would like to very much thank, I guess, as everybody has, to President Havel for still carrying on this initiative and inviting me. Thank you.

Frédéric Mousseau
In the past twenty years, the life of many has improved, but we need to recognize that for a number of countries this is not the case. In Africa, life expectancy is decreasing. We've seen, I think most of you have seen recently, the images on television of Haiti floods. And just going back to our debate before, these floods and these thousands of deaths in Haiti were not due to deforestation, as was said in many medias; they were indirectly due to deforestation. The question is, “Why did people do this—the deforestation––to Haiti? Twenty years ago, Haiti was a self-sufficient country for its agriculture; it was producing its own rice.
Haiti lost all of its ability to produce its own food and consume it. And then, the sons and the daughters of the farmers who used to grow rice, twenty years ago, are now in the hills collecting wood; this is deforestation. But at the end of the day, what is really the cause of these thousands of deaths we've seen in these last few weeks? Unfortunately, it is the case in so many countries. We need to analyze that. We can't say that this is just beautiful and it is improving. It's terrible in so many countries today.

Šimon Pánek
I think we are still going around the same question of what we could do to speed up the process of influencing the global economic players and key decision-makers around the world. And that's what the theme of the forum was. We got advice that it should go through our national governments. But I think that the national governments often are not sure what they are controlling, or that they know what's happening in the international economic organizations, such as IMF or World Bank. So my question is basically still the same: Is there any other tool or instrument which could speed up the process and bringing in of the statistics which we have? Information from the global south is showing that in very many cases, the economical policy of World Bank or IMF leads countries to collapse, basically, or their economy to collapse. Is there a chance to influence the policy of the rich towards the poor? Basically, if there is no chance, then the revolutionary group, which is saying that we should change it somehow is right. If there is a chance, we should accelerate this process.

Ing-Wen Tsai
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to say, I very much appreciate the opportunity we're being given to be present here in this two-day's conference. Particularly, I want to say thank you, President Havel, for this wonderful organization and leadership.
This conference has been very helpful for us, particularly people in Taiwan in the sense that Taiwan has been rather successful in trade and other aspects of commerce. We can be considered as one of the beneficiaries of this globalization trend and also globalization of trade. This conference gives us another, rather different perspective, and as a result, I feel that we will have a better sense of responsibility as to the global issues before us. We shall be more prepared to participate in the discussions of the issues, and prepare to take responsibility. Thank you.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Thank you very much. Francisco.

Francisco Whitaker
Perhaps only to thank you very much for this meeting, I also learned a lot. And I think we must congratulate the organizers for the participatory way in which they have organized this meeting. And I would like to propose that from now on, we should find a way to a virtual continuity of this dialogue among participants. And I thank you really very much for the initiative and for this meeting. Thank you.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Thank you, Francisco. And, last but not least, President Havel.

Václav Havel
Ladies and Gentlemen, Honored participants,
It is a pleasure to give my heart felt thanks to you for accepting the invitation to this eighth conference, and it was my honor to participate in its deliberations. In my opinion, it is not only the plenary session, not only the workshop discussions that matter, it is also everything else: it is your interviews, other affiliated activities and the personal contacts that we are developing during this conference.
As far as the topic of our conference, I believe that all of us feel that there is something dangerous in the contemporary civilization. On the one hand, it offers absolutely admirable things. On the other hand, there are great dangers hidden in modern society. I have observed the oscillation between these two poles. One pole is a quest for organizational technical measures that could challenge some of the dangers; the other is intangible, a rather emotional antagonism towards the great gaps existing in the contemporary world. I believe both positions are important.
Our first Czechoslovak president spoke about revolution of minds and hearts. I respect the ethos of various anti-globalization movements as far as they do not break shop-windows or commit violence. I respect these movements when they rationally strive for reflection and search to restrain some of the threats to contemporary society. I feel as if there is a special self-motion of civilization, and we are merely observing this self-motion, perhaps even feeling a bit disturbed by this movement. Now we may either revolt against it in some way or consider the sources of this danger: where does it come from, what does it affect, and how should we face its consequences? Personally, I feel that we still lack true resolution. All of this is just a preparation of ground. The starting point will likely be an awakening of human responsibility. When and how this will happen I do not know. I do know that the establishment of certain institutions in civil society, especially their dialogue with governmental and international institutions and meetings such as this are important ground for something that will happen; something that should happen.
Thank you once again. Any of your suggestions on how to enhance these meetings will be greatly appreciated. I am looking forward to the next meeting in Prague, to which I am cordially inviting you.

Lord Desai of St Clement Danes
Thank you very much for that, President Havel, and thank you all for being here. Good journey back. Thank you.