IV
106TH CONGRESS
2D SESSION
H. RES. 479
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regarding global
sustainable development, and for other purposes.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
APRIL 13, 2000
Mr. SANDERS (for himself, Mr. BROWN of Ohio, Mr. DEFAZIO, Mr. EVANS,
Mr. KUCINICH, Ms. LEE, Ms. MCKINNEY, and Ms. WOOLSEY) submitted
the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Inter-
national Relations, and in addition to the Committees on Banking and
Financial Services, and Ways and Means, for a period to be subsequently
determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provi-
sions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives regard-
ing global sustainable development, and for other pur-
poses.
Whereas a new global economy has emerged over the past 25
years;
Whereas the global economy has had a profound and at times
destructive impact on the majority of Americans and of
people around the world;
Whereas most people have had little input in designing or
governing the global economy;
•HRES 479 IH
Whereas the current structure of the global economy there-
fore violates the fundamental right of people to equality
and self-determination as proclaimed in the Declaration
of Independence of the United States and the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights; and
Whereas uncontrolled globalization threatens the sustain-
ability of local and global environments: Now, therefore,
be it
Resolved,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This resolution may be cited as the ‘‘Global Sustain-
able Development Resolution’’.
SEC. 2. SENSE OF THE HOUSE WITH RESPECT TO CONTROL
OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY.
It is the sense of the House of Representatives that
the United States and the people of the United States,
and the people and governments of the other Nations of
the world, should take actions to establish democratic con-
trol over the global economy.
SEC. 3. FINDINGS WITH RESPECT TO UNREGULATED ECO-
NOMIC GLOBALIZATION.
The House of Representatives makes the following
findings of fact:
(1) EFFECTS
OF
UNREGULATED
ECONOMIC
GLOBALIZATION.—Experience has proved that un-
regulated economic globalization tends to generate
the following deleterious consequences:
•HRES 479 IH
(A) VOLATILITY.—Global financial deregu-
lation has reduced barriers to the international
flow of capital. More than $1,500,000,000,000
flows across international borders every day in
the foreign currency market alone, a volume so
large that a single nation cannot by interven-
tion create or restore monetary stability. The
result is a world economy marked by dangerous
and disruptive financial volatility.
(B) 
‘‘RACE
TO
THE
BOTTOM’’.—
Globalization promotes a destructive competi-
tion in which workers, communities, and entire
nations are forced to cut labor, social, and envi-
ronmental costs in order to attract mobile cap-
ital. When many countries each tries to under-
cut their competitors the result is a disastrous
‘‘race to the bottom’’.
(C) INADEQUATE DEMAND.—As each work
force, community, and nation seeks to become
more competitive by reducing wages and social
and environmental overheads, lower wages and
reduced public spending result in less buying
power. This leads to stagnation, recession, un-
employment, and economic crisis on national,
regional, and global scales.
•HRES 479 IH
(D) 
INCREASED
POVERTY.—The 
past
quarter-century of globalization has seen not a
reduction but a vast increase in poverty, as
demonstrated by the following examples:
(i) In the global economy, the number
of unemployed persons is approaching
1,000,000,000.
(ii) In the economy of the United
States, real average wages were $9 per
hour as of 1973 and had decreased to $8
per hour as of 1998, 25 years later. The
median family income was $1,000 less in
1996 than it was in 1989. While this de-
crease in median family income was occur-
ring, the workload of the typical married
couple increased by 247 hours per year, or
more than 6 weeks of additional work.
(E) ECONOMIC
INEQUALITY.—Economic
globalization has contributed to an enormous
increase in the concentration of wealth and the
growth of poverty both within nations and
worldwide, as demonstrated by the following ex-
amples:
(i) The single richest person in the
United States has wealth equal to the com-
•HRES 479 IH
bined wealth of the people who comprise
the least wealthy 40 percent of the popu-
lation of the United States.
(ii) The combined wealth of the 3
richest individuals in the world is greater
than the combined gross domestic product
of the 48 poorest countries in the world,
which represent one-quarter of the nations
in the world.
(iii) The 225 richest individuals in the
world, 60 of whom are residents of the
United States with combined assets of ap-
proximately $311,000,000,000, have a
combined 
wealth 
of 
more 
than
$1,000,000,000,000, which is equal to the
combined annual income of the people who
comprise the least wealthy 47 percent of
the world population.
(iv) The 447 richest individuals in the
world have a combined wealth greater than
the combined annual income of the people
who comprise the least wealthy half of the
world population.
(F) 
DISCRIMINATORY
IMPACTS.—The
downward pressures of globalization have fo-
•HRES 479 IH
cused most intensively on groups subjected to
discrimination that have the least power to re-
sist, including women, racial and ethnic minori-
ties, and indigenous peoples. Women have been
the primary victims of exploitation in export in-
dustries and have suffered the brunt of cut-
backs in public services and public support for
basic needs. Immigrants and racial and ethnic
minorities in many parts of the world not only
have been subjected to exploitation, but also
have been abused as scapegoats for the eco-
nomic 
troubles 
caused 
by 
corporate
globalization. Indigenous peoples have had their
traditional ways of life disrupted and their eco-
nomic resources plundered by global corpora-
tions and by governments doing the bidding of
global corporations.
(G) 
DEGRADATION
OF
DEMOCRACY.—
Globalization has reduced the power of individ-
uals and peoples to shape their economic des-
tinies through participation in democratic proc-
esses, as demonstrated by the following exam-
ples:
(i) Of the 100 largest economies in
the world, 51 are corporations, not coun-
•HRES 479 IH
tries. Globalization has greatly increased
the power of global corporations relative to
local and national governments. The ability
of governments to pursue development, full
employment, and other national economic
goals has been undermined by the increas-
ing ability of corporations to relocate cap-
ital to other jurisdictions.
(ii) 
There 
are 
few 
international
equivalents to the antitrust, consumer pro-
tection, and other laws that provide a de-
gree of corporate accountability at the na-
tional level. As a result, corporations are
able to dictate policy to governments,
backed by the threat of relocation.
(iii) Governmental authority has been
undermined by trade agreements, such as
the North American Free Trade Agree-
ment and the World Trade Organization,
and by international financial institutions,
such as the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank, which restrict the
power of national and local governments to
govern their own economies. These institu-
tions themselves are sorely lacking in
•HRES 479 IH
democratic 
control 
and 
accountability.
They are all too often themselves complicit
in the denial of human rights.
(2) COMMON INTEREST.—It is in the common
interest of the people of the United States and of
the people of the world to rectify these defects.
SEC. 4. SENSE OF THE HOUSE WITH RESPECT TO THE POLI-
CIES OF THE UNITED STATES REGARDING
THE GLOBAL ECONOMY.
It is the sense of the House of Representatives that
the United States should adopt the following policies:
(1) GLOBAL ECONOMIC GOALS.—To reconstruct
the global economy to realize the following goals:
(A) Democracy at every level of govern-
ment from the local to the global.
(B) Human rights for all people.
(C) Environmental sustainability through-
out the world.
(D) Economic advancement for the most
oppressed and exploited parts of the population,
including women, immigrants, racial and ethnic
minorities, and indigenous peoples.
(2) DEMOCRATIC MULTILEVEL GLOBAL ECON-
OMY.—To construct a democratic multilevel global
economy that strengthens the capacity of govern-
•HRES 479 IH
ments to expand the capacity of their people to meet
economic needs and that gives due regard for the
following considerations:
(A) HUMAN RIGHTS.—Under the United
Nations Charter on the Economic Rights and
Duties of States, governments have the obliga-
tion to protect the human rights of their citi-
zens. These include their labor, social, environ-
mental, economic, and cultural rights. Govern-
ments have the right to pursue policies nec-
essary to fulfill these rights.
(B) INTERNATIONAL ACTION.—In a global
economy, international coordination and inter-
national institutions are at times necessary for
governments to effectively meet their obligations
to their people and to exercise the rights nec-
essary to do so.
(C) SUBSIDIARITY PRINCIPLE.—To the ex-
tent feasible, economic decisionmaking should
follow the subsidiarity principle, under which
decisionmaking is exercised as close to the locus
of the actual activity being decided as possible.
(3) REDUCTION
OF
VOLATILITY.—To reduce
the threat of financial volatility and meltdown by
using the following measures:
•HRES 479 IH
(A) 
CAPITAL
CONTROLS.—Encouraging
capital controls to reduce the destabilizing im-
pact of international financial speculation (re-
ferred to as ‘‘hot money’’) and to restore na-
tional monetary autonomy, including—
(i) national controls on capital inflow
and outflow;
(ii) levies on currency exchange trans-
actions to reduce the volume of short-term
transactions, restore national monetary au-
tonomy, and provide a resource pool for
sustainable development and environmental
protection; and
(iii) other forms of regulations on cur-
rency exchange rates and volumes.
(B) CURRENCY
STABILIZATIONS.—Fore-
stalling competitive devaluations and helping
countries adjust to changing conditions without
drastic devaluations and massive increases in
exports.
(C) APPROPRIATE ECONOMIC DEMAND.—
Supporting appropriate economic demand to re-
duce insufficient global economic demand,
which requires the concerted efforts of the
major economic powers to ensure that global
•HRES 479 IH
demand remains adequate to help all economies
grow. Efforts to increase demand should focus
primarily on increasing equity and sustain-
ability by expanding the resources devoted to
the global poor and the global environment.
(D) DISCOURAGING
HIGH-RISK
SPECULA-
TION.—Making speculators pay for their losses
and eliminating international bailouts, which
have insulated large banks and investors from
the consequences of their high-risk speculations
and have encouraged more such speculative ven-
tures (referred to as ‘‘moral hazard’’). The re-
sult of international bailouts has been even
more international volatility. When assistance is
provided for economies in trouble, the assist-
ance should benefit the people, not the inter-
national investors who lured them into trouble
in the first place.
(4) SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT.—To counter
inequality, poverty, and destructive competition (the
‘‘race to the bottom’’) in the global economy by
using the following measures:
(A) ENVIRONMENTAL
MEASURES.—Pro-
tecting the global environment by encouraging
•HRES 479 IH
development that enhances the environment as
a long-term resource.
(B) ECONOMIC
MEASURES.—Encouraging
global, national, and local policies that—
(i) ensure livable wages;
(ii) make credit available for small
and medium-sized locally owned businesses
and farms;
(iii) pursue progressive taxes that re-
duce the burden on the poor;
(iv) promote long-term investment
rather than short-term investment that
skims off speculative profits;
(v) encourage spending on primary
health care, basic education, and other so-
cial services that improve the lives of peo-
ple and provide the basis for long-term
economic growth; and
(vi) empower people in local commu-
nities to use their resources to address
their needs, in accordance with the prin-
ciples that—
(I) 
international 
agreements
should not interfere with the right of
communities to set minimum stand-
•HRES 479 IH
ards and to pursue economic self-reli-
ance; and
(II) national and international
policy should channel resources to lo-
cally controlled development.
(C) ENDING
GLOBAL
DEBT
SLAVERY.—
Pressuring creditors to write off the debt of the
poorest countries and to assist other debtor
countries in making sustainable development
rather than debt repayment their first priority.
(D) PURSUING COOPERATION AMONG RICH
AND POOR COUNTRIES TO REDUCE WORLD POV-
ERTY.—Recognizing that the existing gap be-
tween the global rich and poor is unacceptable,
and it is unconscionable to act as if the existing
gap can be a permanent feature of the global
economy.
(E) GRASSROOTS
ORGANIZATIONS.—En-
couraging people at the grassroots to organize
themselves in strong and independent trade
unions and other organizations to assure their
participation in economic decisions and in an
equitable distribution of economic benefits.
(5) DEMOCRACY.—To encourage democracy by
using the following measures:
•HRES 479 IH
(A) FINANCIAL
SUPPORT.—Using eco-
nomic policy to support democracy and human
rights. While humanitarian aid should be avail-
able to all in need, financial support should be
provided only in ways that encourage democra-
tization and popular participation and should
not be used to perpetuate regimes that deny
human rights.
(B) DEMOCRACY IN FINANCIAL INSTITU-
TIONS.—Democratizing international financial
institutions including the International Mone-
tary Fund and the World Bank, and inter-
national groups including the G–7/8. It is unac-
ceptable to assume that the rich countries of
the world can monopolize decisionmaking re-
garding the future of the global economy
through dominant voting privileges at the inter-
national financial institutions and through cre-
ation of major policy decisions through the G–
7/8. Voting in international financial institu-
tions must move toward the standard of equal
representation for all the world’s people. Inter-
national economic policymaking must move
from the ‘‘rich men’s club’’ of the G–7/8 to a
renewed North/South dialogue.
•HRES 479 IH
(C) ACCOUNTABILITY IN FINANCIAL INSTI-
TUTIONS.—Making international financial insti-
tutions transparent and accountable. The proce-
dures, decisions, and programs of organizations
including the World Bank, International Mone-
tary Fund, and the World Trade Organization
need to be open to public scrutiny.
(D) PARTICIPATORY
DECISIONMAKING.—
Letting those affected by international economic
policies participate in formulating them. Instead
of closed negotiations with top government and
corporate officials, decisions about international
economic agreements and loans should require
participation by labor unions, environmental
groups, women’s organizations, development or-
ganizations, and other major sectors of civil so-
ciety in each affected country.
(E) ESTABLISHING
PLANS.—Encouraging
governments at every level to establish sustain-
able development plans and to provide inter-
national support for the implementation of such
plans.
(F) REDUCING ‘‘CRONY
CAPITALISM’’.—
Ending ‘‘crony capitalism’’ by reducing the
domination of political systems and media by
•HRES 479 IH
economic oligarchs and by increasing the capac-
ity of people to organize at the grassroots.
SEC. 5. SENSE OF THE HOUSE WITH RESPECT TO DEVEL-
OPING DIALOG REGARDING THE FUTURE OF
THE GLOBAL ECONOMY.
It is the sense of the House of Representatives that,
to develop the broadest possible dialog by the people of
the United States among themselves and with the other
peoples of the world regarding the future of the global
economy, the following actions should be carried out:
(1) UNITED STATES COMMISSION.—The United
States should establish a United States Commission
on the Global Economy with the following character-
istics:
(A) PURPOSE.—The purpose of the com-
mission should be to initiate a dialog on the fu-
ture of the global economy.
(B) DUTIES.—The duties of the commis-
sion should include the following duties:
(i) To hold hearings to investigate the
effect of globalization on the workers, in-
dustry, and environment of the United
States, which should—
(I) include the full participation
of civil society, including representa-
•HRES 479 IH
tives from labor, women, minority, en-
vironmental, farm, and small business
groups; and
(II) have results that are widely
distributed and are made available for
public comment.
(ii) To hold ‘‘town meetings’’ in major
cities in the United States to invite public
participation in discussions.
(iii) To cooperate with similar com-
missions established by other countries and
by the United Nations.
(iv) To report its findings and rec-
ommendations to the Congress and to the
people of the United States.
(2) 
UNITED
NATIONS
COMMISSION.—The
United States should initiate the establishment of a
United Nations Commission on the Global Economy
with the following characteristics:
(A) PURPOSE.—The purpose of the com-
mission should be to initiate a global dialogue
on the future of the global economy.
(B) ACCOUNTABILITY.—The Commission
should function under the auspices of the
•HRES 479 IH
United Nations, as the representative of the
world’s people.
(C) DUTIES.—The duties of the Commis-
sion should include the following duties:
(i) To seek to revive the North/South
dialogue and thereby to reorient the global
economy toward greater economic justice.
(ii) To use and expand techniques de-
veloped over the past decade to include
representatives of civil society and non-
governmental organizations in United Na-
tions conferences, including funding and
support for civil society participation.
(iii) To work with the United States
Commission on the Global Economy and
corresponding commissions of other na-
tions to develop the broadest possible dia-
logue regarding the future of the global
economy.
(iv) To establish a Global Economy
Truth Commission that—
(I) should have as its purpose to
provide citizens of the world with in-
formation needed to monitor the re-
sults, impacts, and failures of eco-
•HRES 479 IH
nomic institutions and policy at every
level; and
(II) should have the power to in-
vestigate, publicize, and refer to other
authorities abuses in the use of inter-
national funds and in the exercise of
power of international financial insti-
tutions.
(v) To initiate a series of Bretton
Woods 
type 
international 
conferences,
which—
(I) should include representatives
not only of countries, bankers, and in-
dustry, but an equal number of citizen
organizations from every country, and
should base negotiations on an open,
inclusive, and democratic process; and
(II) should make recommenda-
tions for and initiate negotiation of an
international agreement for global
sustainable development.
•HRES 479 IH
SEC. 6. SENSE OF THE HOUSE WITH RESPECT TO THE
GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT FI-
NANCIAL STRATEGY.
It is the sense of the House of Representatives that
the United States should enter into negotiations with
other members of the United Nations to develop and im-
plement a sustainable development strategy with the fol-
lowing characteristics:
(1) IN GENERAL.—The objective of the United
States in the Global Sustainable Development Agree-
ment should be to incorporate the principles, rules,
and policies enunciated in this Resolution and estab-
lish the institutions described in this Resolution as
modified by the global dialog under section 5.
(2) INTENT.—The intent should counter the as-
pects of the global financial system that make it
more difficult for communities, regions, and Nations
to pursue sustainable development.
(3) PURPOSE.—The strategy should have as its
purpose to restructure the international financial
system to avoid global recessions, protect the envi-
ronment, ensure full employment, reverse the polar-
ization of wealth and poverty, and support the ef-
forts of polities at all levels to mobilize and coordi-
nate their economic resources.
•HRES 479 IH
(4) WORK WITH OTHER NATIONS.—The United
States should work with other Nations to—
(A) encourage economic policies based on
domestic economic growth and development, not
domestic austerity in the interest of export-led
growth;
(B) encourage the G–7/8 countries to co-
ordinate their economic policies to stimulate do-
mestic demand and prevent global deflation;
(C) help countries adjust currency ex-
change rates without competitive devaluations;
(D) develop means for assuring global li-
quidity, such as an expansion of the system of
special drawing rights, in order to protect the
global economy, and especially the economies of
poorer countries, from liquidity squeezes;
(E) encourage a return to more stable ex-
change rates in order to achieve the original
purposes of the Bretton Woods agreement;
(F) reduce the flows of destabilizing short-
term capital by the adoption of capital controls
as necessary;
(G) establish standards for and oversee the
regulation of banks and non-bank financial in-
•HRES 479 IH
stitutions by national and international regu-
latory authorities;
(H) encourage the shift of financial re-
sources from speculation to sustainable develop-
ment that is useful and environmentally posi-
tive, such as community development and tar-
geted investment for small- and medium-sized
businesses and farmers; and
(I) pursue other measures to ensure that
global demand is adequate to provide full em-
ployment and a rising standard of living.
(5) 
FOREIGN
CURRENCY
TRANSACTION
TAXES.—The United States, in cooperation with
other nations, should establish levies on all foreign
currency transactions and should establish the mech-
anisms for implementing such levies on such trans-
actions. The levies should have the following pur-
poses:
(A) To reduce the volume of destabilizing
short-term cross-border financial flows.
(B) To restore national monetary auton-
omy over national currency.
(C) To provide pools of funds for invest-
ment in long-term environmentally and socially
•HRES 479 IH
sustainable development in poor communities
and countries.
(6) 
PUBLIC
INTERNATIONAL
INVESTMENT
FUNDS.—The United States, in cooperation with
other nations, should establish 1 or more public
international investment funds. The funds should
have the following purposes:
(A) To meet human and environmental
needs and ensure adequate global demand by
channeling funds into sustainable long-term in-
vestment.
(B) To counter global economic cycles by
expansion and contraction of fund activities.
(7) 
INTERNATIONAL
INSTITUTIONS.—The
United States, in cooperation with other nations,
should develop international institutions to perform
functions of monetary regulation that are performed
inadequately by national central banks, which may
include the following functions:
(A) Maintaining a system of internation-
ally coordinated minimum reserve requirements
on the consolidated global balance sheets of all
financial firms.
•HRES 479 IH
(B) Utilizing reserve requirements to
counter cyclical variations in global growth
rates.
(C) Coordinating efforts to reduce fluctua-
tions in currency exchange rates through com-
plementary national fiscal and monetary policies
and international exchange rate agreements.
(8) DEBT CANCELLATION.—The United States
should take the following actions with respect to
debt cancellation:
(A) 
INITIATIVES.—The 
United 
States
should work with the G–7/8, the commercial
banks, the International Monetary Fund, the
World Bank, regional development banks, and
other international financial institutions to pur-
sue debt cancellation initiatives that—
(i) provide for creditors to write off
the debts of the most impoverished coun-
tries by the end of the year 2000; and
(ii) have as their final goal to allow
countries to pursue sustainable domestic
development.
(B) CANCELLATION.—The United States
should cancel all amounts owed to the United
States by the most impoverished countries.
•HRES 479 IH
(C) ADVOCACY.—The United States should
instruct its representatives in the International
Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and other
international financial institutions to advocate
full debt cancellation for the most impoverished
countries and to participate in debt relief.
Sources for debt relief may include previous
IMF accounts, special drawing authority, en-
hanced structural adjustment facility reserve
account, lower collateral requirements, and
gold. The international financial institutions
should provide $1,000,000,000 of their own re-
sources to support substantial debt relief for
the highly indebted countries.
(D) NO STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT CONDI-
TIONS.—The United States should urge the
principle that debt cancellation should not de-
pend on adherence to structural adjustment or
similar programs.
(E) SUPPORT INVESTMENT.—The United
States should urge the principle that countries
receiving debt relief should support investment
in human development by allocating at least 20
percent of savings from such relief to basic so-
•HRES 479 IH
cial services, with appropriate input from civil
society in developing basic service plans.
(F) 
EXPORT
EARNINGS.—The 
United
States should not require any country to pay an
amount exceeding 5 percent of its annual ex-
port earnings toward the servicing of foreign
loans.
(G) MILITARY
SPENDING.—The United
States should urge the principle that funds re-
ceived for debt relief may not be used to in-
crease military spending.
(9) INSOLVENCY
MECHANISM.—The United
States should cooperate with other Nations to estab-
lish, for highly indebted nations, an insolvency or
‘‘bankruptcy’’ mechanism with the following charac-
teristics:
(A) IN GENERAL.—The mechanism should
draw upon the experience of other bankruptcy
procedures for governments, such as the munic-
ipal insolvency provisions of chapter 9 of the
United States bankruptcy law.
(B) ARBITRATION
PANELS.—The mecha-
nisms should provide for the creation of arbitra-
tion panels with the following characteristics:
•HRES 479 IH
(i) Each arbitration panel should con-
sist of arbiters nominated in equal num-
bers by creditors and debtors, with 1 addi-
tional arbiter elected by the nominated ar-
biters.
(ii) Each arbitration panel should es-
tablish the debtor’s capacity to pay, after
considering expenditures for social safety
nets necessary to protect a minimum of
human dignity of the poor and to protect
the debtor’s economic future.
(iii) Persons affected by the results of
arbitration proceedings should have the
right to be represented in the proceedings.
(C) RESTRUCTURING DEBTS.—The mecha-
nisms should provide that when an arbitration
panel determines a country to be insolvent and
its debts to be unrepayable, the panel should re-
structure debts based on the debtor’s ability to
pay. The restructuring should apply to all credi-
tors regardless of status as a government, an
international financial institutions, or a private
creditor.
•HRES 479 IH
SEC. 7. SENSE OF THE HOUSE WITH RESPECT TO REFORM
OF 
INTERNATIONAL 
FINANCIAL 
INSTITU-
TIONS.
It is the sense of the House of Representatives that
the United States should impose the following conditions
on any funding by the United States of the World Bank,
the International Monetary Fund, or any other inter-
national financial institution:
(1) LABOR CONDITIONS.—
(A) WORKER RIGHTS.—Each international
financial institution should ensure, as a condi-
tion of approval and renewal for every loan,
conformance with internationally recognized
worker rights set forth in the relevant conven-
tions of the International Labor Organization,
including—
(i) the right to freedom of association;
(ii) the right to organize and bargain
collectively;
(iii) the right to freedom from dis-
crimination;
(iv) the prohibition on the use of any
form of forced or compulsory labor;
(v) the right to strike; and
(vi) the right to certain minimum
labor standards that take into account dif-
•HRES 479 IH
ferences in development levels among Na-
tions, including a minimum age for the
employment of children, and acceptable
conditions of work with respect to min-
imum wages, hours of work, and occupa-
tional safety and health.
(B) 
ILO 
REPRESENTATION.—Mission
teams of international financial institutions
should include a representative from the Inter-
national Labor Organization to take the lead in
negotiating labor issues.
(C) 
LOCAL
REPRESENTATION.—Local
labor unions should participate in the negotia-
tions.
(D) DOCUMENTATION.—The outcome of
the negotiations should be reflected in all inter-
national financial institution documents.
(2) ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS.—
(A) SYSTEMATIC
PROCESS.—Each inter-
national financial institution should establish a
systematic process to review in advance, and
take into account in policy formation, projected
impacts of each lending agreement on ecological
sustainability.
•HRES 479 IH
(B) ACCOUNTING.—Each international fi-
nancial institution should employ natural re-
source economists with expertise in environ-
mental accounting measures to integrate such
measures into technical assistance.
(C) REGULATIONS.—Environmental regu-
lations should not be weakened under any pro-
gram of any international financial institution.
(D) TAX
POLICIES.—Loan programs of
any international financial institution should
encourage environmental tax policies to protect
the environment by correcting negative environ-
mental market externalities and other market
failures.
(E) LENDING.—All lending by any inter-
national financial institution should aim to
strengthen environmental laws and increase the
borrowing government’s capacity for environ-
mental management and enforcement. Lending
must also incorporate the goals of shifting the
portfolio and operations toward environmentally
sustainable investments.
(F) CONSISTENCY.—No project or policy
of any international financial institution should
•HRES 479 IH
run contrary to the purpose or policy of any
multilateral environmental agreement.
(G) WORLD BANK ACTIONS.—The World
Bank should take the following actions:
(i) Invest 20 percent of its total en-
ergy portfolio in alternative or renewable
energy, demand-side management and en-
ergy efficiency programs in 2000, with the
share of such programs in the total energy
portfolio increasing 10 percent per year
thereafter to a permanent total to be es-
tablished.
(ii) Reduce carbon emissions on its
entire portfolio by 10 percent per year to
a permanent total to be established.
(iii) Develop and implement an action
plan for meeting the energy needs of the
world’s 2,000,000,000 rural poor.
(iv) Shift its transportation portfolio
from road and highway construction to
traffic demand management, road safety,
rail, public transportation, and projects
that benefit nonmotorized transport users,
especially in the poorest segments of soci-
ety.
•HRES 479 IH
(v) Expand its investments in sustain-
able agriculture projects that emphasize
farmer participation, ecological education,
and training to reduce use of pesticides
and other chemical inputs.
(vi) Assist governments in developing
integrated policy frameworks to support
sustainable agriculture and local and na-
tional food security.
(vii) Establish forest protection, con-
servation, and reforestation as the priority
objective for forest sector loans.
(viii) Fund projects that examine al-
ternatives to wood and better efficiency in
wood use.
(ix) Increase investments for demand-
side management and water efficiency
projects.
(H) WORLD
BANK
EXCLUSIONS.—The
World Bank should exclude from funding the
following projects:
(i) 
Infrastructure 
or 
extractive
projects in frontier or primary tropical,
temperate, or boreal forests.
•HRES 479 IH
(ii) Logging or other forest projects
unless certified by an accredited inter-
national certification body such as the For-
est Stewardship Council.
(iii) Projects in or impacting areas
listed on the United Nations list of na-
tional parks and protected areas, or nature
reserves/wilderness 
areas, 
or 
national
parks, or national monuments or proposed
nature sites.
(iv) Projects that involuntarily resettle
more than 500 people.
(v) Large dam projects that do not in-
corporate the recommendations of the
forthcoming final report of the World
Commission on Dams.
(vi) Projects involving the manufac-
ture of ozone-depleting substances or the
use of persistent organic pollutants or haz-
ardous pesticides.
(I) IMF ACTIONS.—The articles of agree-
ment of the International Monetary Fund
should be amended to reflect adherence to and
enforcement of environmental sustainability, in-
cluding the following elements:
•HRES 479 IH
(i) Establishing a system of environ-
mental reviews.
(ii) Preparing environmental impact
statements for each lending agreement.
(iii) Requiring that borrowing coun-
tries, at a minimum, maintain and enforce
existing environmental regulations.
(iv) Requiring that environmental
spending as a percentage of gross domestic
product not decrease under any program.
(3) SOCIAL CONDITIONS.—
(A) AVAILABILITY
OF
CREDIT.—Credit
policies should not decrease the availability of
credit for small- and medium-sized locally
owned businesses and farms.
(B) BASIC
SOCIAL
SERVICES.—An eco-
nomic reform program by an international fi-
nancial institution should not result in de-
creased real per capita public spending on the
part of the borrower government in the areas of
primary health care, basic education, and other
basic social services.
(C) NO USER FEES.—An international fi-
nancial institution should not advocate user fees
•HRES 479 IH
for basic health and education services in any
loan program.
(D) REVIEW
OF
IMPACTS.—Each inter-
national financial institution should establish a
systematic process to review in advance, and to
take into account in policy formation, projected
impacts of each lending agreement on public
health and poverty, as well as the impact of
such policies on vulnerable groups such as
women and children.
(4) DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS CONDI-
TIONS.—
(A) 
INDEPENDENT
MONITORING
PRO-
GRAM.—An independent monitoring program
should be established to identify violations of
human rights by international financial institu-
tions and should have the power to order such
institutions to immediately cease and desist
from such violations.
(B) PROMOTION
OF
DEMOCRACY
AND
HUMAN RIGHTS.—All programs and policies of
international financial institutions should pro-
mote the growth and maintenance of democracy
and human rights in countries that receive
funds from such institutions. All such policies
•HRES 479 IH
should be developed in consultation with civil
society. Countries that engage in war crimes,
such as genocide, should not receive such funds,
except for programs meeting the strictest condi-
tions for humanitarian aid.
(5) IFI GOVERNANCE.—
(A) OPEN BOOKS.—Each international fi-
nancial institution should open all past books
and records for a complete investigation and
audit by the Global Economy Truth Commis-
sion.
(B) PUBLIC RELEASE.—Each international
financial institution should release publicly all
evaluation and audit documents, interim com-
mittee and development committee documents,
staff country reports, and any other documents
and reports serving similar functions. Such
public release should be a regular ongoing pro-
cedure of the institution.
(C) DISCLOSURE.—Each international fi-
nancial institution should adopt public informa-
tion disclosure policies that are based on the
presumption of disclosure of information sub-
ject only to narrow and limited exceptions. In-
formation should be disclosed early enough for
•HRES 479 IH
potentially affected persons to know of projects
in time to effectively oppose or participate in
the design process. Denials of requests for in-
formation should be subject to impartial review.
(D) ARTICLES OF AGREEMENT.—The arti-
cles of agreement of each international financial
institution should be amended to provide for
more democratic representation of the world’s
peoples in proportion to their numbers in its
governing bodies, drawing upon such govern-
ance models as the Global Environmental Facil-
ity.
(6) PARTICIPATION.—
(A) SYSTEMATIC
INTEGRATION.—Public
participation by government ministries, labor
unions, environmental groups, women’s organi-
zations, development organizations, and other
major sectors of civil society should be inte-
grated systematically in all policy and program
negotiations of each international financial in-
stitution with each borrowing country.
(B) 
DOCUMENTATION.—The 
decisions
reached through the dialogue between the inter-
national financial institutions and the public
should be reflected in the final texts of con-
•HRES 479 IH
sultations, staff concluding analyses, and coun-
try reports.
(C) ACCOUNTABILITY.—Each international
financial institution should implement inde-
pendent, impartial, and citizen-driven account-
ability mechanisms to ensure that persons af-
fected by the institution’s projects or policies
have a means of holding the institution ac-
countable for following its own policies and pro-
cedures. These mechanisms and procedures
should be no less stringent than those estab-
lished for the World Bank Inspection Panel.
(7) IMF MISSIONS.—
(A) TERMINATION
OF
IMF ‘‘MISSION
CREEP’’.—The International Monetary Fund
should, within 2 years after the date of passage
of this resolution, wind down and terminate all
programs and activities it has created or ex-
panded since 1971 (referred to as ‘‘mission
creep’’), including the following programs and
activities:
(i) Structural Adjustment Facility.
(ii) Enhanced Structural Adjustment
Facility.
(iii) Structural Adjustment Programs.
•HRES 479 IH
(iv) Imposition of so-called ‘‘good gov-
ernance’’ policies.
(v) Loans for purposes other than the
original mission of the International Mone-
tary Fund, to address short-term external
trade imbalances.
(vi) Bailouts of banks and private
lenders.
(vii) Advice, prescriptions, and man-
dates on national economic policies.
(B) IMF MANDATE.—The International
Monetary Fund should cease to condition lend-
ing on the adoption of economic policies and
measures that are inconsistent with the original
mandate of the Fund as expressed in its arti-
cles of agreement, which is a mandate ‘‘to con-
tribute . . . to the promotion and maintenance
of high levels of employment and real income
and to the development of the productive re-
sources’’ of its members.
(C) NO NEW POWERS.—The International
Monetary Fund should abandon efforts to
amend its articles of agreement to give itself
new powers relative to liberalization of the cap-
•HRES 479 IH
ital accounts of its member countries (referred
to as ‘‘backdoor MAI’’).
SEC. 8. SENSE OF THE HOUSE WITH RESPECT TO COR-
PORATE ACCOUNTABILITY.
It is the sense of the House of Representatives that,
to help establish public control and citizen sovereignty over
global corporations and reduce the ability of global cor-
porations to evade local and national law, the following
measures should be implemented:
(1) ESTABLISHMENT OF CODE OF CONDUCT.—
The United States should enter into negotiations
with other countries to establish a binding Code of
Conduct for Transnational Corporations. The code
should impose on each corporation that operates in
more than 1 country the following requirements:
(A) EMISSIONS
DISCLOSURES.—The cor-
poration should disclose land, water, and air
emissions of toxic substances for each facility
and disclose accidental discharges of toxic sub-
stances. The list of toxic substances for which
disclosure is required should include, at a min-
imum, substances covered by the toxic release
inventory in the United States.
(B) FACILITIES DISCLOSURES.—The cor-
poration should disclose the names and address-
•HRES 479 IH
es of all fully or partially owned facilities and
all contractors and subcontractors.
(C) 
HAZARDOUS
MATERIALS
DISCLO-
SURES.—The corporation should disclose haz-
ardous materials imported across national bor-
ders.
(D) WORKER
RIGHTS.—The corporation
should abide by all internationally recognized
worker rights as defined in the Trade Act of
1974 and all International Labor Organization
conventions.
(E) ENVIRONMENTAL
STANDARDS.—The
corporation should adhere to standards no
lower than the World Bank standards on pollut-
ant discharge and all other environmental per-
formance measures.
(F) TERMINATION OF OPERATIONS.—The
corporation should give advance notification and
severance pay to workers when operations are
terminated.
(G) UNIONS.—The corporation should sign
neutrality agreements protecting union orga-
nizing efforts.
•HRES 479 IH
(H) FINANCIAL
DISCLOSURES.—The cor-
poration should disclose financial information
including—
(i) local profits and losses;
(ii) ownership;
(iii) environmental liabilities; and
(iv) information on policies of the cor-
poration that affect stakeholders other
than shareholders, such as employment
practices, worker health, tax payments,
and receipt of government subsidies.
(I) INVESTMENT.—The corporation should
report its investment intentions.
(J) EDUCATION AND JOB TRAINING.—The
corporation should offer employees education
and job training.
(K) SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL STAND-
ARDS.—The corporation should adhere to social
and environmental standards that are, at min-
imum, no less than the social and environ-
mental standards that are required of the cor-
poration in its home country.
(2) ENFORCEMENT OF CODE OF CONDUCT.—
There should be established a mechanism of adju-
dication and sanctions to enforce the code of con-
•HRES 479 IH
duct. The enforcement mechanism should allow both
governments and citizens to initiate complaints of
noncompliance by global corporations and should op-
erate in a transparent manner.
(3) NO REPRISALS.—Governments should not
be subject to trade or other reprisals for efforts to
enforce the code of conduct.
(4) STANDARDS PENDING IMPLEMENTATION.—
Pending the implementation of the code of conduct,
corporations based in the United States should im-
mediately follow, in their overseas operations, the
standards of the United States or the host country,
whichever is stronger, with respect to the following
matters:
(A) TOXIC
SUBSTANCE
DISCLOSURES.—
Disclosure of the use, emission, and accidental
discharge of toxic substances.
(B) FACILITIES DISCLOSURES.—Disclosure
of the names and addresses of fully or partially
owned facilities and of contractors and sub-
contractors.
(C) LABOR RIGHTS.—Core internationally
recognized labor rights.
(5) U.S. LAWS.—The laws of the United States
should be amended such that corporations incor-