Target 17.10: Rules-based multilateral trading system
Promote a universal, rules-based, open, non-discriminatory and equitable multilateral trading system under the World Trade Organization
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Trade rules are negotiated by states, but corporate lobbying shapes national positions. The OECD's 2021 lobbying report found that transparency measures have not kept pace with corporate influence over policy. Corporate legal action also interacts with trade and investment rules: UNCTAD's navigator records 1,332 known investor-state cases, 60 of them initiated in 2023. Owners voting for lobbying disclosure and alignment can help at the margin. The target itself belongs to WTO members.
How this was scoredHelpful
Helpful. Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
What civil society organizations are helping owners on this
Runs a corporate lobbying program under which members press companies through dialogue and resolutions to disclose direct and indirect lobbying spending and to address gaps between stated policy and actual spending, with 60 proposals filed as of April 2025 and majority votes at Cenovus and McDonald's.
Corporate Lobbying, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2025-04
Has worked with shareholder partners filing election-spending resolutions at public companies since 2004, and since 2022 has run a Model Code resolution asking companies to require and publish political expenditure reports from trade associations, 527 groups and 501(c)(4) organisations they pay.
Recent Shareholder Engagement, Center for Political Accountability
3 campaigns on record
Disclose lobbying spending and election spending and strengthen oversight of both, across 32 lobbying disclosure resolutions, 23 election spending transparency resolutions and 5 on climate lobbying alignment.
With United Church Funds, Zevin Asset Management
Result: Eight companies reached expanded disclosure agreements and the proposals were withdrawn; six proposals went to a vote.
AbbVie added to its lobbying spending disclosure and withdrew from four trade associations, after which the proposal was withdrawn. Air Products successfully challenged its resolution at the SEC, prompting more than thirteen further company challenges.
Increase disclosure of corporate political activity and strengthen board oversight of lobbying and campaign spending, including adoption of the CPA-Zicklin Model Code of Conduct for Corporate Political Spending and the Erb Principles for Corporate Political Responsibility.
Result: A resolution at Stride nearly reached a majority with 49.5 percent support.
Starbucks and Boeing reached negotiated agreements to add detail to their lobbying reports.
Disclose corporate spending on direct and indirect lobbying activities so shareholders can assess whether Walmart's lobbying is consistent with the company's stated goals and interests.
Result: not stated in source. The source notes a similar 2021 proposal received 22 percent overall support, which the proponents calculate as 54 percent of shares excluding Walton family insiders.
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.