MANY TO MANY 67

An UNCTAD Letter

OPTU recently approached Mr Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) with questions which are self-evident from the following reply that we appreciate having received:

On behalf of Mr. Ricupero, I would like to inform you that the Set of Multilaterally Agreed Equitable Principles and Rules for the Control of Restrictive Business Practices (UN RBP), adopted by unanimity by the General Assembly in Resolution 35/63 of 5 December 1980 is still Valid and in operation.

Further to adoption of that resolution by the General Assembly, an intergovernmental Group of Experts (IGE) on Restrictive Business Practices – now renamed IGE on Competition Law and Policy – was established in 1981 and holds annual meetings in Geneva, to monitor the application and implementation of the Set. The next session of the IGE will be on 7-9 June this year, followed back-to-back (the same week) by the WTO Working Group on the Interaction between Trade and Competition Policy.

In addition to the IGE's annual meetings, the UN has held three UN Conferences to Review All Aspects of the Set, in 1985, 1990 and 1995, and the Fourth Review Conference is scheduled to take place in September 2000.

It should be noted that the UNRBP Set was adopted in a General Assembly resolution unanimously by all States, but that the resolution is in the form of a recommendation to States, thus not a binding instrument. In all the Review Conferences, it was always unanimously agreed that the Set had to be implemented, that the main emphasis was on helping all States to adopt national competition rules and implement them, and hence, that technical assistance should be made available by UNCTAD, resource permitting, to all States requesting it.

At the 1995 Review Conference, developing countries had requested that the Set be made binding, and that was fiercely opposed by the developed (OECD) countries. The 1990 and 1995 Review Conferences placed the emphasis on technical assistance.

It remains to be seen whether negotiations on a "multilateral framework" on competition will be initiated at the WTO after the December 1999 Ministerial in the US. An agreement under the WTO could be a binding one. It remains to be seen also whether the special and differential treatment for developing countries which is a recognised principle in the UN Set would survive in a WTO instrument.

For further discussion about the issues of competition law and policy, please feel free to contact me by e-mail.

Yours sincerely,
Philippe Brusick
e-mail:



The self-appointed Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which, as this letter reveals, blocked the request of developing nations to make the UN RBP Set binding, instead arbitrarily assumed the role of a law making body, investing itself with the right to draft a Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) – This draft agreement amounted to a monopoly of policy for international free trade, with questionable rules and regulations which themselves were intended to be binding. Although the draft was for one reason or another rejected by the international community (see "Many to Many" issues, 62,63,64,65 & 66), the world's peoples are today left pondering the anomaly of high level government officials from 29-industrial nations both participating in the OECD – a body outside the United Nations System – and also belonging to UN states that had unanimously endorsed the Set of Multilaterally Agreed Equitable Rules and Principles for the Control of Restrictive Business Practices, for which there had always " been a unanimous desire for its implementation by the world's governments.

SO where do we go from here? At the very least it is to be hoped that this information will alert public opinion to any future attempt to establish free trade rules and regulations inconsistent with the interests of the planetary community as a whole.

The impression is widespread among NGOs that notwithstanding the fate of the ill-conceived MAI, there may yet be an attempt on the part of some OECD governments to promote parts or all elements of its underlying agenda in other negotiating fora such as the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and it is up to us all to take heed and be wary of any such move.

All this prompts the question, should the OECD ever have been accepted as a suitably neutral and unprejudiced forum for drafting a multilateral trade agreement designed to impact far into the future every part and level of human society? As UNCTAD Secretary-General Rubens Ricupero has aptly remarked: "it is not good enough to preach liberalisation or globalisation just because they might do good; policy makers must also measure their responsibility and take into account the consequences of their policy." (NGLS Roundup, Dec.'98-Jan'99). What surely is -now needed is to build a consensus on the basis of a search for balance and there is little need to look beyond UNCTAD as an appropriate negotiating forum for a global trade and development policy.

As has already been stated – and cannot be emphasised too strongly – the internationally agreed principles, rules and regulations for an alternative trade and development policy already exists. This matter goes to the very core of Human and Environmental Rights. To make the UN RBP Set binding would go far to ensure respect for the primacy of these essential rights and render them inviolable for future generations.



Many to Many
a quarterly publication issued by
Operation Peace through Unity

Anthony Brooke and Gita Brooke, co-founders
Te Rangi, 4 Allison Street, Wanganui 5001, New Zealand
phone/fax: +64-6-345-5714 ~ e-mail:
OPTU is an accredited NGO in association with the UN Dept of Public Information
Many to Many
under the aegis of
Operation Peace Through Unity
is a communicating link between
'we, the peoples' of all nations, races, creeds and ideologies offering in the spirit of the preamble of the United Nations Charter an instrument for the furthering of better relationships based on deepening mutual understanding and the aspiration to promote unity and cooperation beyond all differences.