With corporations often bigger than governments and often functioning outside domestic legislation, some social contract of accountability needs to exist between corporations and the people whose lives they affect. Questions for the Conference to address firstly include the viability of voluntary codes of conduct and corporate self-regulation; the potential danger of ‘greenwashing’ and the actual effectiveness of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); as well as the balancing of rights bestowed to corporations with counterpart binding responsibilities.

Global finance and investment decisions made by the corporate world also bear huge significance in people’s lives around the world. Financial operations also often limit the development possibilities of certain countries by framing the context of economic opportunity and capital allocation.

The task of this Conference will be to imagine a new holistic regulatory and strategic framework for the structure of the global financial economy, within which corporations are chief agents. By examining the operations of global financial markets, the Conference will look at the root issues relating to global inequality. The viability of a Financial Transaction Tax (FTT) will be discussed, as this could control escape of money and generate billions of dollars for many purposes. There should also be an assessment of the usefulness of different types of investment in developing countries, the ability of domestic governments to regulate foreign investors for the sake of domestic development goals.

Other questions to address would be the prevention of tax evasion at the expense of developing countries, and the need for the regulation of unsustainable and harmful corporate practices and capital flows. By addressing these questions, the Conference should above all try to construct an improved program for the global corporate and financial system.

Topic Area B: Climate Change and the Sustainability of Trade

Trade is fundamentally unecological in many aspects. Transportation of material goods across the globe amounts to enormous emissions levels. Offshoring of production to developing countries incurs huge environmental damage, while the consumption of those products often occurs in rich countries. The carbon footprint of the UK, for instance, increases by a half when imported emissions are taken into account. The Conference’s task is thus to deliberate what trade strategy and regulation could diminish environmental damage and unsustainable trade flows.

Commodification of the greenhouse gases and of the effects of climate chance, as well as natural resources usually leads to their undervaluation due to the difficulties in quantifying. The value in itself and for human survival of the environment needs to be taken into account also in how international trade functions and in what is being traded. Pollution havens need to be abolished and international regulation needs to target import and export flows as well as production and management of waste. The product lifecycle management (PLM) is one way to view and address this problem, by making companies accountable for the environmental impact they cause. Local refining of products, local food security, and the diversification of the economy need to be evaluated. The committee will think of strategies to strengthen capacity of countries to weather the effects of climate change by increasing self-sufficiency in both environmental and economic of crises. The Conference should assess the role subsidies in creating a greener economy. Delegates might want to come up with a proposal for a treaty on sustainable or ecological international trade.

The key questions would also include: how to mitigate climate change by making trade more ecologically sound; is there a need to localize or regionalize trade more; and how to make the agents of trade, namely corporations, accountable for the environmental effects of their production cycle.