INTERNATIONAL CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE

ICC is an international organization that promotes international trade

and investment, and helps business meet the challenges and
opportunities of globalization.
The International Chamber Of Commerce (ICC) has a worldwide
network of committees and industry experts to assist the members in
the issues that may affect them.
ICC was founded in 1919 in Paris by a group of industrialists, financiers
and traders and the first president of ICC was the former French
minister of commerce Etienne Clmentel.
There was no world system of rules to govern trade, investment,
finance or commercial relations. That the private sector should start
filling the gap without waiting for governments regulation.

Today ICC represents companies and business organizations of all sizes

and in more than 120 countries.
The main goals:

To promote the business interests of the private sector;

To provide a representative body for business people with which
government can consult;
To promote, support or oppose legislation or other measures affecting the
business community;
To provide a forum for discussion of private sector goals;
To promote the economic viability of the area, so those current businesses
will grow and new ones will be developed locally;
To provide the business sector with a common voice.

The International Chamber of Commerce seeks to foster international

trade and commerce, as well as to protect and promote open markets
for goods and services, along with the free flow of capital. The ICC also
battles corruption and commercial crime to foster more economic
growth, job creation and prosperity. (INVESTOPEDIA)
The International Chamber Of Commerce (ICC) has a worldwide
network of committees and industry experts to keep members abreast
of the issues that may affect them, as well as contacts within the World
Trade Organization, the United Nations and other intergovernmental
agencies.

The International Chamber of Commerce promotes international trade

and investment, and helps business meet the challenges and
opportunities of globalization. ICC has three main activities rule
setting, arbitration and policy and provides essential services such as
ICC Arbitration, training, commercial crime fighting and customs
facilitation. National committees, including USCIB, work with their
members to help set priorities and provide input in the formulation of
ICC positions, and they convey these positions to their governments.
Worldwide, more than 2,000 experts drawn from ICCs member
companies feed their knowledge and experience into crafting the ICC
stance on specific business issues. The United Nations, the World
Trade Organization, the G20 and many other intergovernmental
bodies, both international and regional, are kept in touch with the
views of international business through ICC. (USCIB)
http://www.uscib.org/index.asp?documentID=754

In 1919, a handful of entrepreneurs decided to create an organization that would

represent business everywhere.

The group of industrialists, financiers and traders were determined to bring economic prosperity to a
world that was still reeling from the devastation of World War I. They founded the International
Chamber of Commerce and called themselves "the merchants of peace".
The world had few working international structures in the immediate aftermath of the first of the 20th
century's global conflicts. There was no world system of rules to govern trade, investment, finance
or commercial relations. That the private sector should start filling the gap without waiting for
governments was ground-breaking. It was an idea that took hold.
Although they did not know it at the time, the pioneers were creating an organization that would
become essential to the global economy. Over the years, ICC has taken a central role in
international trade and business. It forges international rules, mechanisms and standards that are
used every day throughout a vastly more complex world than that of 1919.
The original nucleus of businessmen from five countries has expanded to become a world business
organization with hundreds of thousands of member companies in more than 120 countries.
Members include many of the world's biggest multinationals as well as small- and medium-sized
companies.
Much of ICC's early impetus came from its first president, Etienne Clmentel, a former French
minister of commerce. Under his leadership, the new organization's international secretariat was
established in Paris. Mr Clmentel was also instrumental in creating the ICC International Court of
Arbitration in 1923.
From the very beginning, ICC spoke out on behalf of business in making representations to
governments and intergovernmental organizations. Three ICC members served on the Dawes
Commission, which drew up the international treaty on war reparations in 1924.

In the 1920s, ICC focused on reparations and war debts. Then the disastrous Smoot-Hawley tariff in
the United States set the scene for the economic nationalism of the 1930s. ICC struggled through
those years of depression to hold back the tide of protectionism as another world war loomed.
ICC issued the first version of its Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits, still used
by banks all over the world to finance trade, in 1933. Incoterms the standard trade definitions that
are familiar to every trader came in 1936, updated whenever necessary since then. And, the
following year, ICC introduced its first International Code of Advertising Practice.
ICC was awarded the highest level consultative status with the United Nations (UN) in 1946, and
since then has represented the private sector by engaging in a broad range of activities with the UN
and its specialized agencies.
ICC has remained a diligent advocate of the open multilateral trading system through successive
trade rounds, including the Doha Round. As ICC membership included more and more countries in
the developing world, the organization stepped up demands for the opening of world markets to
their products, especially agriculture.
To meet the needs of its members, ICC has expanded its activities over the years. ICC Commercial
Crime Services, based in London, was founded in the 1980s to address all aspects of commercial
crime. The World Chambers Federation provides a hub for chambers of commerce throughout the
world.
Today, 13 ICC commissions comprising experts from the private sector cover specialized fields of
immediate concern to international business. Subjects range from banking techniques to taxation,
from competition law to intellectual property rights, telecommunications and information technology,
from transport, environment and energy to international investment and trade policy.
All these activities fulfil the pledge in ICC's constitution "to further the development of an open world
economy with the firm conviction that international commercial exchanges are conducive to both
greater global prosperity and peace among nations.

1)

Impulsa la globalizacin de la economa

La ICC es una organizacin empresarial mundial nica y global. Es la voz del mundo empresarial en un
contexto de globalizacin en que, dado que las economas nacionales son cada vez ms interdependientes,
las decisiones gubernamentales tienen repercusiones internacionales ms fuertes que en el pasado. De ah
que la ICC reaccione de forma ms enrgica en la expresin de sus opiniones, defendiedo la globalizacin de
la economa como fuerza motriz del crecimiento econmico, la creacin de trabajo y la prosperidad.
2) Promueve el crecimiento y la prosperidad
La ICC apoya los esfuerzos gubernamentales para que la Ronda de Doha sea un xito, proporcionndole
recomendaciones hechas por el empresariado mundial. Es una invitada permanente a las reuniones de los
principales grupos empresariales y gubernamentales (G-20, G-8, APEC, WEF, entre otros) y difunde en los
diferentes medios de prensa mundiales sus posturas frente al comercio, las inversiones y otros temas
empresariales.
3) Difunde y defiende la experiencia empresarial

La ICC difunde la experiencia empresarial en diferentes foros, como en las cumbres de la ONU sobre el
desarrollo sustentable, financiamiento para las polticas de desarrollo y la sociedad de la informacin. Junto
con la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas para el Comercio y el Desarrollo (UNCTAD), la ICC ayuda a atraer
la inversin a algunos de los pases ms pobres. Para ello, cre un Consejo Consultivo de Inversiones para
los pases menos desarrollados y tambin moviliza ayuda empresarial para el desarrollo de frica.
Otra instancia es la reunin, que se realiza cada dos aos, de la Federacin Mundial de Cmaras (WCF),
deonde los empresarios abordan los asuntos econmicos internacionales ms urgentes. Esta reunin es
tambin una oportunidad para las cmras de comercio de todo el mundo de exponer sus realidades,
proyectos y desafos, adems de generar redes de contactos de gran utilidad para su trabajo local.
La ICC tambin ha asumido un activo rol frente a los gobiernos, defendiendo al empresariado mundial cuando
estos toman decisiones que afectan las estrategias corporativas y las condiciones en que las empresas
pueden desarrollar sus negocios.
4) Fija reglas y estndares
La ICC, a travs del trabajo realizado por sus diferentes comisiones, crea reglamentos, estndares y guas de
conducta que las compaas adoptan voluntariamente y pueden ser incorporadas en sus contratos
obligatorios
La utilizacin del arbitraje internacional ha aumentado con el Reglamento de la Corte Internacional de la ICC.
Desde 1999, la Corte ha recibido nuevos casos, ms de 500 al ao.
Las Reglas y Usos Uniformes relativos a los crditos documentarios (RUU 500, UCP 500) de la ICC son
reglas que los bancos aplican para financiar miles de millones de dlares del comercio mundial cada ao.
Los Incoterms de la ICC son definiciones de clusulas internacionales comerciales utilizadas cada da en
infinidad de contratos. (Ms informacin sobre los Incoterms en )
La ICC facilita la vida de las pequeas empresas que no pueden permitirse grandes asesoras jurdicas
proveyndoles de contratos modelo y tambin es pionera en la autorregulacin del comercio electrnico.
Los cdigos de publicidad y de marketing de la ICC son incorporados con frecuencia en las legislaciones
nacionales y en los cdigos de autorregulacin de las asociaciones profesionales.

To promote the business interests of the private sector;

To provide a representative body for business people with which government can consult;
To promote, support or oppose legislation or other measures affecting the business community;
To provide a forum for discussion of private sector goals;
To promote the economic viability of the area, so those current businesses will grow and new ones will be
developed locally;
To provide the business sector with a common voice.