In this column, Share the World's Resources' Rajesh Makwana calls for an end to the corporate capture of sustainable development policies, especially at the international level. Makwana cautions against the growing influence of corporate interests in UN processes and the pro-market solutions they advocate for, in particular the concept of a  "green economy" that does not question the growth paradigm and proposes to monetize nature. His column comes at a time when GPF has just co-published a working paper on the influence of corporations in the Post-2015 Agenda at the UN.

A new Briefing Paper by Oxfam deals with the diagnosis that economic inequality was rapidly raising in the majority of countries: "almost half going to the richest one percent; the other half to the remaining 99 percent". As this inequality was interdependent with economic capture, Oxfam's paper calls on the World Economic Forum to do something about that: "Left unchecked, political institutions become undermined and governments overwhelmingly serve the interests of economic elites to the detriment of ordinary people. Extreme inequality is not inevitable, and it can and must be reversed quickly."

American economist Joseph E. Stiglitz addressed the second UN Forum on Business and Human Rights on 3 December 2013. In his powerful speech he called on Governments to move beyond soft law  towards a binding international agreement on business and human rights. He concluded: "Economic theory has explained why we cannot rely on the pursuit of self-interest; and the experiences of recent years have reinforced that conclusion.  What is needed is stronger norms, clearer understandings of what is acceptable—and what is not—and stronger laws and regulations to ensure that those that do not behave in ways that are consistent with these norms are held accountable."