York U. Conference: Corporate Governance & Corporate Responsibilities in Developing Economies
Academics, Business, NGOs From Around the Globe to Examine Corporate Practices, Seek Shared Solutions to Globalization's ill Effects in Third World Countries

TORONTO, April 17, 2000 -- As protestors mobilize at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund summit in Washington D.C.-- dubbed ėSeattle II: the Sequel'-- they are renewing public concern about the ill effects of globalization on poor countries, including the proliferation of sweatshops, child labour and pollution.

Sharing these concerns is a group of scholars, and representatives from business, government and non-governmental organizations from Canada and abroad who will gather at York University Mon., April 17, 1 p.m. - 6 p.m. and Tues., April 18, 9 a.m. - 5 p.m., for a conference entitled Corporate Governance & Corporate Responsibilities in Developing Economies.

The conference is the brainchild of York University social science professor Darryl Reed, Co-ordinator of York's Business and Society Program. Reed says recent events such as the Seattle Summit bring home the message that the changing shape of the global economy is the most important and hotly contested issue in the international realm today. "At issue are the roles, the influence, and the responsibilities of corporations in the increasingly integrated global economy and whether and how they are helping to improve the situation of the developing world."

"Government, business and citizens in Canada need to address such issues as how businesses run themselves, how their behaviour affects everyone, and what corporate responsibility should be in developing economies. We can only do that fairly and effectively if we talk with each other and with people in the developing world. This conference is intended to provide one such site of dialogue," says Reed.

Among the papers to foster this dialogue:

Oil and Communities don't mix: Unequal exchange in the Niger Delta (Prof. Pablo Idahosa, Co-ordinator, York University African Studies Program)

Private, Voluntary Regulation of Labour Rights and Standards in the Global Economy: An Evaluation of the Fair Labour Association and the Global Alliance for Workers and Communities (McMaster Labour Studies Prof. Don Wells)

Greening Business in Jamaica (York Environmental Studies Prof. David Bell)

Corporate Responsibility and the Environment in Mexico (Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana Economics Prof. David Barkin)

Development-induced displacement and cross-border corporate responsibilities: an ethical analysis (Prof. Peter Penz, Director, York University Centre for Refugee Studies)

The conference also falls on the heels of last week's South Summit where leaders from some of the world's poorest countries met in Cuba to call on the world's power-broker nations to forgive debts, increase aid and trade, share new technologies and shift more development-related decision-making to the United Nations and away from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Organized by the York University's Business & Society Program, the Centre for Practical Ethics and McLaughlin College, the conference has received funding from York University, the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute and the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) through the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute Partnership Program. The conference will be held at McLaughlin College junior common room (014), York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto.

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For the full conference agenda or more information visit http://www.yorku.ca/dreed/agenda3.htm, or contact:

Assistant Professor Darryl Reed
Co-ordinator, Business and Society Program
York University
(416) 736-2100 ext. 77805
dreed@yorku.ca

Ken Turriff
Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22086
kturriff@yorku.ca
YU/047/00