Target 17.12: Duty-free market access for least developed countries
Realize timely implementation of duty-free and quota-free market access on a lasting basis for all least developed countries, consistent with World Trade Organization decisions
Owners voting their values help. Others must carry most of it.
Why shareholder democracy is helpful
Duty-free quota-free access is granted by importing governments, and the UNSDG Report shows the LDC export share still stuck near 1.1 percent despite existing preferences. Importing-country producers and their trade associations lobby over exclusions and rules of origin, and the OECD lobbying report documents the general transparency gap in such influence. Owners voting for lobbying disclosure help at the margin.
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 the CPA-Zicklin Index of corporate political disclosure and accountability, scoring the largest US public companies on 24 metrics covering disclosure, decision-making policy and board oversight of treasury-funded election spending, and supports shareholder partners filing a Model Code resolution covering payments to trade associations.
CPA-Zicklin Index, Center for Political Accountability, 2025
Coordinates member resolutions asking companies to disclose direct and indirect lobbying spending, including payments to the trade associations that lobby on tariff and market access questions.
Corporate Lobbying, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, 2025-04
1 campaign on record
Disclose lobbying and election spending, including payments to trade associations, and strengthen board oversight of it.
Result: Eight companies agreed to expanded disclosure and the proposals were withdrawn; six went to a vote.
AbbVie added to its lobbying spending disclosure and withdrew from four trade associations.
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.