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. 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. 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 . Access is obviously a significant element in globalization.
Producers require access to markets, and purchasers require access to goods and services.
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. 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.