According to a leak of a US draft of the September United Nations summit agreement, corporate responsibility and accountability were among several points to be scratched from the agenda.

The draft was of the communiqué issued after the summit of world leaders, held to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the UN. The initial draft was composed largely by European diplomats, as a result of the seven-month hiatus in US representation at the UN – John Bolton’s appointment was only confirmed in early August, but his predecessor, John Danforth, retired in January.

In any event, it was harder to imagine a document that made clearer the US administration’s disagreements with most of the rest of the world on just about every global issue imaginable. Deleted were any reference to the Millennium Development Goals; commitment to “provide the organisation with the resources needed to fully implement its mandates”; recognition that “climate change is a serious and long-term challenge”; commitment to collaborate with the International Criminal Court; and “establishment of timetables by many developed countries to achieve the target of 0.7% of gross national product for official development assistance by no later than 2015”.

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