New system needed to tackle human aspects of globalization - WTO head

Geneva, 23 September 1998 - World Trade Organization head Renato Ruggiero today urged a new global architecture to deal with all the human problems associated with globalization.

"This is the future we need to invent," he told a meeting organized here by the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce to build cooperation between business and governments in meeting the challenges of the global economy.

Addressing the first ICC Geneva Business Dialogue, the WTO Director-General said this new system should "encompass not just trade, finance or development, but the human dimension of globalization in all its many facets. Our interdependence is about more than trade or capital flows. As distances and barriers fall, we are increasingly dependent on each other's economic security, on our shared development, environment, health and stability."

At the same time he said the WTO must press forward with its programme of mutually agreed rules embracing more and more countries. "We have to redouble our efforts to advance current negotiations with the 32 candidates who want to join the WTO. They include giants such as China, Russia and Ukraine; ex-Soviet republics in the Baltic and Central Asia; Saudi Arabia and Chinese Taipei."

All speakers -- from business leaders to the President of the Swiss Confederation and heads of international organizations -- warned against the damaging effects of protectionist steps and attitudes. Niall FitzGerald, Chair of Unilever, UK, argued: "Managing globalization is not about managing a homogenous whole. It is about managing diversity." He said the "explosion of individualism" was more important for companies than globalization: "There is no global consumer."

Earlier United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan said expanding relationship between the UN and the ICC "is part of a trend that holds great promise for global peace and prosperity: the growing awareness that the goals of the United Nations and the goals of business can and should be mutually supportive."

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