John Kamm, President of Asia Pacific Resources, former President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong (USA):

"American companies often argue that their mere presence in foreign countries helps create the material conditions needed for progress towards respect for human rights, rule of law, and political pluralism.  I have done business in China for my entire adult life, and I know for a fact that American firms have done a lot of good.  But American business can and should do much more than establishing a presence and conducting business as usual in the narrow confines of the workplace.  They can and should work to create the same conditions of respect for individual rights and rule of law that are the foundation of our system of free enterprise, the operation of which creates commercial prosperity.  Promoting respect for human rights and rule of law is good for business, and businesspeople -- with the resources at their disposal, their negotiating skills and most of all their relationships -- are uniquely qualified to do so.

American companies can use their buying power to curtail the use of child and prison labor by putting into place systems that screen out such products.  We can resist corruption and can empower and stand behind our colleagues when they do the same.  American managers can step in to protect their employees from the arbitrary abuse of police and petty officials, relying first on the laws of the land in which we operate.  We can support groups working for improvements to the legal system and the environment.  American enterprises can monitor and report on human rights conditions in the communities where they do business.  Our business leaders should use their very considerable influence with the governments of developing countries to lobby for a freer press, easier access to the Internet, more tolerance of religion, free association and dissent, and adherence to international standards spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  And we can speak out for those men and women jailed for the non-violent expression of their political and religious beliefs, the priest who runs an underground church, the organizer who tries to set up a trade union, the journalist who reports information that a government might not want to see published.  We can speak their names, and in helping them, help ourselves."

[remarks made by John Kamm on the occasion of accepting the Global Best Practices Award from the United States Department of Commerce, 5 June 1997, Washington, D.C., from a transcript of those remarks]