This year marks the 50th anniversary of the OECD’s Guidelines For Multinational Corporations For Responsible Business Conduct, a set of principles to which the United States, the other OECD nations, and additional signatories totaling 52 nations comprising nearly two-thirds of the world’s economic activity and the bulk of market-based, democratic nations, adhere.  In this condensed set of remarks, the longer version of which can be found here, I was honored to help set the stage for a discussion of the importance of and ways to strengthen the Guidelines among leading representatives of business, labor, and governmental stakeholders.

We gather at a time when the citizens of OECD nations have reason to be cynical about whether political and business leaders can be trusted.

Facing incontrovertible evidence that human-caused climate change is accelerating and poses enormous economic and human harm, business leaders have abandoned commitments to help arrest warming before it is too late.  Knowing that artificial intelligence poses great dangers, the AI industry has pivoted from recognizing that legal regulation is necessary to advocating a “just trust us” approach, spending enormous sums to influence the political process against responsible regulation, and seismically expanding their use of climate-harming energy.

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