|
|
 |
|
SIKKEL'S HAMMER:
The OECD is keeping an eye on corporate abuses |
|
 |
|
Marinus W. Sikkel
52, Dutch
Why He Matters: He's pushing multinational companies to improve their behavior around the globe
Location: The Hague
|
 |
Posted Sunday, Dec. 1, 2002; 15.43GMT
Watch out for Sikkel if you run a multinational company that uses child labor or bribes its way into contracts in developing countries. He chairs an intergovernmental group, the Committee on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises, which two years ago, after contentious debate, pushed through a major revision of guidelines for multinational corporations, adding such issues as human rights abuses to the agenda and extending its rules to include corporate behavior around the world. Several other codes of conduct exist, but Sikkel's guidelines have been adopted as policy by the 30 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development as well as governments in Argentina, Brazil and elsewhere. Crucially, they come with real teeth: complaints can be filed at national "contact points," which are supposed to bring all parties in a dispute together.
Labor unions and aid groups remain skeptical about the effectiveness of the guidelines and worry that the process isn't public enough. One of their biggest concerns is that cases are handled in vastly different ways depending on where they are filed. The Czech Republic and Sweden win praise for their conduct of investigations, while critics accuse both the U.S. and U.K. of dragging their feet.
But several cases have been heard, including one involving French companies such as TotalFinaElf, which operates in Myanmar. That resulted in the French contact point issuing specific new recommendations for company behavior in Myanmar, but it didn't silence allegations that Total had used forced labor there, a charge the company denies. One of the most successful resolutions to date was a Canadian case involving Vancouver-based First Quantum Minerals that prevented the company from evicting thousands of peasant farmers from mining land in Zambia. Sikkel says the point of the exercise is not to name and shame companies but "to encourage them to do the right thing."
Patricia Feeney, a consultant and former adviser to Oxfam, says Sikkel "deserves a lot of credit for the guidelines and continues to play a critical role in trying to leverage up the level of government participation."
Sikkel also runs the Dutch contact point, which has been working on eight cases over the past year, one of which involves alleged low wages and poor conditions of workers who make soccer balls in India.
 |
 |
|
S T R I K E S
 Back to the Barricades
Unions across Europe are striking, bringing back memories of the bad old 1970s. Do governments have the stomach for a fight?
E U R O P E
 Serbia Votes
Hard-line nationalism tries to make a comeback in the Balkans
|
I R A Q
The Kurdish Question
Iraqi Kurds would welcome the fall of Saddam, but fear the instability that may come after he's gone.
P R O F I L E
Brawn and Brains
Ukrainian heavyweight (and Ph.D.) Wladimir Klitschko
|
|
|
 |
|
