In the Swiss ski resort town of Davos, international business and political leaders have met each year for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum since the late 1980s. At their 1999 event, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan shared his vision of a global compact between his organization and the private sector “to underpin the new global economy.” Focusing on human rights, labor standards and environmental practices (areas already defined by international agreements, including the 1992 Rio Declaration), such a compact “would lay the foundation for an age of global prosperity, comparable to that enjoyed by the industrialized countries in the decades after the Second World War.” Pressure to improve standards in these areas was “a threat to the open global market, and especially to the multilateral trade regime,” he warned. “These are legitimate concerns,” Annan continued, “but restrictions on trade and impediments to investment flows are not the means to use when tackling them.”...