FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 2000-05-22

Access for All: Social Aspects of Globalization

        On May 22 2000, COPOLCO (the International Organization for Standardization's committee on consumer policy) held its annual workshop in Kyoto, Japan. The theme of this year's workshop was Consumer protection in the global marketplace: Using standards as a safeguard.

        Consumer advocates and experts from around the world discussed how international standards could be used to provide protection for consumers in areas such as privacy, safety and information.

        Linda Lusby, the chair of the Standards Council of Canada, was invited to speak on the social aspects of globalization, and how these could affect consumers' access to the anticipated benefits of the global market. Here are her speaking notes.

        (Because of an illness, Ms. Lusby was unable to attend the workshop. Her presentation was delivered by Standards Council member Irene Seiferling.)

Good morning and thank you for the kind introduction and invitation to participate in this workshop today. I am particularly pleased to be able to address this specific topic as we consider Consumer Protection in the Global Marketplace. The social aspects of globalization are becoming increasingly important in my mind and I hope in the next few minutes to be able to present you with some of the factors that I think we should be considering.

I should caution you from the outset that the views, opinions and theories that I am about to present are essentially my own. I am not speaking on behalf of the Standards Council of Canada, nor ISO, nor any formalized consumer or other stakeholder group. I am speaking as a consumer, as a person who has had the privilege of traveling to many parts of the world, and as a person who is very concerned about the great "melting pot" I see developing in today's economy.

It is perhaps ironic that I come to a meeting of people involved with standardization and begin to talk about some of the potential dangers of standardization. Although the goal of "one product, one test, one mark" is a noble and worthy one in many respects, there is a downside which I feel we must be cognizant of in order to be effective and responsible in our actions.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (http://www.bbc.co.uk) has just recently completed a most interesting series of lectures, the Reith Lectures, in which they invited eminent scholars from all over the world to discuss the concept of sustainable development (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_2000/). In a lecture presented on May 10 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_2000/lecture5.stm), Vandana Shiva cautioned the listeners about the impact of globalization on the lives of ordinary people. A world-renowned expert on food security and critic of many globalization efforts, Dr. Shiva expressed the view that "we are so wrong to be smug about the new global economy". In the following lecture, presented on May 17 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_2000/lecture6.stm), His Royal Highness Prince Charles echoed her concerns and urged us to "rediscover an urgent sense of the sacred".

Despite its many critics, I believe we do have to accept the concept of globalization. Some of the realities that have evolved will become obvious as we proceed, but at the outset it may be beneficial to consider the underlying vision for a global marketplace. A Canadian scholar, Michael Hart (http://temagami.carleton.ca/npsia/hart1.html), has described the thrust behind the original work on an international trade agreement more than half a century ago as a two-pronged approach:

        a) From an economic and commercial perspective, the vision was to achieve a more ordered, predictable world in which traders and investors could make their decisions with confidence, and consumers could benefit from the international division of labour;

        b) In the spheres of politics and security, the goal was to ensure that nations had an interest in each other's welfare and would thus not go to war.

In an analysis of the first 50 years of such formalized global trade initiatives, Hart concludes: "open markets, backed by a broadly agreed set of rules and procedures and institutions to make them work are mutually beneficial - beneficial to countries, to firms, to workers, and to individuals." The key here in my mind, and the imperative for those of us involved in standardization and consumer issues, is that we need to create the "broadly agreed set of rules and procedures" and we need to back those with "institutions to make them work". Standards and international, regional, and national standardization bodies can and should be looking at both of these agendas.

My objective this morning is to look at the concept of standardization and the reality of globalization and to interpret both of those in the context of consumer protection, and specifically the social aspect of access. The question then becomes: "how do we ensure access for all to the benefits of globalization?"

Access is obviously a significant element in globalization. Producers require access to markets, and purchasers require access to goods and services. As this very simple concept of globalization has evolved however, governments and policy makers have become confronted with the deeper and more controversial access issues surrounding equity and distribution:

•     A potential purchaser doesn't have access if he or she doesn't have the resources needed to make the purchase;
•     A purchaser also needs to have access to the transaction. The marvels of e-commerce are of little benefit to the millions of households without access to computers, to the Internet or to credit cards.
•     A purchaser without access to information, or information in an understandable format or from a source that we can trust, really has no access to the market because information is necessary to make informed decisions.
•     And finally, a product or service provided with no transparency regarding the context in which it was produced denies the purchaser access to critical environmental, corporate responsibility and human equity issues.

From the producers' perspective, access to markets has also evolved into complex questions which must be considered and resolved:

•     Understanding of cultural differences is an imperative to globalization. A recognition of and respect for multiculturalism reflected in the global notion of a "community of communities" is now beginning to replace the original concept of a global monoculture.
•     The access to resources and the even more controversial notion of ownership of resources are concepts which global institutions must come to grips with before producers can benefit from an equitable access to markets and consumers can benefit from an equitable distribution of resources.
•     The contestability of markets is an issue which producers now face as regional trade alliances develop and multinational corporations assume international rule-making powers.

Finally, the control over others' access is an issue that overrides the whole notion of globalization. Who makes the rules? Who decides how much access is enough? How do we maintain a balance between the needs of the developed and the less-developed regions of the world? Who decides what should be protected as personal or common resources? And if it is to be protected, how do we do it?

Obviously there are many more questions here than we can hope to discuss in today's workshop and the two days of meetings that follow. But what I sincerely hope you recognize is the familiarity of the concepts. As standardizers and as consumers, we have been wrestling with these issues for years. We have seen success in some areas but are still struggling in others.

What I believe we need to do is to reconsider some of the questions I've posed and contemplate again how standards can best be used to achieve the goals of globalization. We may need to re-conceptualize some of our views of standards and perhaps make a better use of horizontal mechanisms and deliverables in the form of international guidelines. Also, we need to put ourselves forward as the type of global institution that can play a constructive role in meeting the needs of governments, producers and consumers. As international standardizers we have unique talents, and I believe we need to offer these to the global community.

Let me conclude with two thoughts extracted from Vandana Shiva's Reith Lecture (http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/events/reith_2000/lecture5.stm) that I think can guide us in our deliberations. First:

        The rules of globalization are not god-given. They can be changed. They must be changed.

And secondly:

        The sustainability challenge for the new millennium is whether global economic man can move out of the world view based on fear and scarcity, monocultures and monopolies, appropriation and dispossession and shift to a view based on abundance and sharing, diversity and decentralization, and respect and dignity for all beings.

As we contemplate the global marketplace and discuss the means of making it equitable and functional, let us keep these two thoughts in mind and take our place as parties ready and willing to develop new rules designed to provide the benefits of a global marketplace to all.

Thank you.

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