Nassau Institute Says OECD Is Acting Outside Its Powers

Tax-News.com, New York

09 May 2002

At a recent conference in Nassau, Dr. Gilbert NMO Morris, director of the Bahamas' Nassau Institute criticised the OECD for operating outside of any known powers or authority in proporting to deal with sovereign governments on matters properly left to the foreign policy of states.

Said Dr. Morris: "It is a fiction that those who oppose the OECD's actins of recent months are defenders of cheats and criminals. Such characterizations are proper to the habits of children, who when they cannot deal with challenges redefine them as nightmares. To put a fine point on what we are dealing with, let me put it this way: You cannot have constitutional democracies and have the OECD in its current iteration. You cannot have an international regulatory dictator and legitimate governments. You must chose one or the other."

Dr. Morris's argued further: "Only days ago His Excellency Colin Powell said rightly that the 'democracies in the Americas were under threat'. We must then be careful in demanding democracy on the one hand, and undermining it on the other. My own position is simple: I believe in the nation state as the principle unit in international relations. Mr. Donald Johnston, the Secratary General of the OECD thinks differently. The OECD has issued statement credited to his office which say the following: "Globalization...has reduced the policymaking capacity and legitimacy of national governments. Multinationalism is now a form of governance".

'In whose name does Mr. Johnston or the OECD speak?' asks Dr Morris. 'The basis of governmental legitimacy is tied to the voting powers, rights and duties of citizens. Has this equation been altered because of the nebulous concept of globalization? Only recently Professor Carl Bauden Bacher, Liechtestein judge at the EFTA (European Free Trade Association) court in Brussels, argued that the OECD measures could not be "properly and legally enforced". We have been making this argument for eight months now, insisting that important questions of law are at stake.'

'No one I know opposing the OECD wants to engage in unlawful practices. We recognize the relationship between the rule of law and stability; level playing fields based on actual practices; tax competition and investment; and we are committed to assisting the G-7 nations and OECD member countries in cleaning up the money laundering scandals in their financial systems.'

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