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Abstract
Following the Rio+20 conference and in anticipation of the end of the Millennium Development Goals, the United Nations is at the centre of debates on the future of sustainable development. In these debates, the UN Secretariat has positioned transnational corporations as essential and legitimate actors for new sustainable development goals. This policy does not follow a direct mandate from member states. Rather, the UN's rapprochement with business in the ‘Post-2015’ process should be seen as an example of independent decision-making by the organization within the constraints of the current world order. This strategy dates back to the late 1990s and is meant to increase the UN's authority and legitimacy and expand its mandate by making it more relevant to powerful actors in the international arena. The article questions whether the organization's strategy vis-à-vis business is producing the anticipated effects, or rather reveals institutional dysfunction.
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Lou Pingeot
Lou Pingeot is a Ph.D. student in the Political Science Department at McGill University and a 2015 Vanier Scholar. Her research focuses on global governance at the United Nations, in particular international development policies, peacekeeping and humanitarian action. From 2010 to 2013, she worked as a policy analyst in New York, where she published reports on issues ranging from UN use of private military and security companies to the ‘Responsibility to Protect’.