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International Policy Network

From SourceWatch

This article is part of or related
to the LM group series:

The International Policy Network (IPN) is a charity based in the UK. It originally had an office in the USA which was closed down in 2003. It was set up in 2001.

The IPN is connected with the White House Writers Group, a for-profit corporate lobbying company (the senior director[1] (http://www.whwg.com/thefirm/WritersBio.cfm?StaffId=24) at the White House Writers Group is also a trustee of the IPN).

The great majority of the IPN's income from donations is from corporations: in both 2003 and 2004 the proportion was about 85%.[2] (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Policy_Network#endnote_ipnAccounts2004)

Table of contents
1 Issues
2 The IPN on Climate Change
3 Links to other organisations
4 Staff
5 Trustees
6 Previous Staff
7 Members
8 SourceWatch Resources
9 External Links

9.1 IPN publications

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Issues

The IPN lists its areas of interest as:

  • Sustainable Development & the Environment
  • Health
  • Free Trade and Globalisation
  • Technology
  • Economics

The IPN is currently running a technology campaign, apparently to promote the use of software patents in Europe. [3] (http://www.ipntechnology.org/ip.php)

It has also become involved in international pharmaceutical issues, seeking to defend the pharmaceutical industry from claims that it ignores the diseases of the developing world in favour of the more profitable lifestyle diseases of wealthy countries.

IPN is promoting privatization of water systems in third world countries, recently presenting their work at an American Enterprise Institute symposium on "Water Scarcity" in Washington DC on 3/22/06 broadcast on CSPAN. [4] (http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.1275,filter.all/event_detail.asp)

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The IPN on Climate Change

In November 2004, the IPN published a report claiming that climate change modellers were exaggerating the potential dangers of climate change:

"Climate modellers differ from aircraft engineers in another way: whereas most aircraft engineers are employed by the private sector and are rewarded according to the usefulness of their designs to the travelling public, climate modellers are funded primarily by governments, and are rewarded according to the extent to which their models are useful to politicians and their entourage. Since politicians seem more willing to fund research when the outcome might give them an excuse to impose regulations and/or taxes, we cannot be surprised that the modellers have responded to these incentives by generating models that exaggerate the impact of humanity’s impact on the climate."[5] (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Policy_Network#endnote_ipnClimateChangeReport)

Around the same time, The Observer reported that:

"Last week, the network's director Julian Morris attacked Britain's highly respected chief scientist. 'David King is an embarrassment to himself and an embarrassment to his country.' He criticised preparations by Tony Blair to use his presidency of the world's most powerful nations next year to lead attempts in tackling climate change. Morris described Blair's plans to use his G8 tenure to halt global warming as 'offensive'."[6] (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Policy_Network#endnote_observer28Nov04)

The same Observer article noted that IPN had received $50,000 from ExxonMobil, which "list[ed] the donation as part of its 'climate change outreach' programme." [7] (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Policy_Network#endnote_observer28Nov04) ExxonMobil also gave $115,000 to the IPN in 2004 [8] (http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=108)

The director of the IPN was attacked in the House of Commons for the fact that its view on climate change happens to concur with that of one of its major funders. Norman Baker MP said: "We may be able to deduce from the comments of Julian Morris that there is an ulterior motive behind his denial of climate change." [9] (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2005-02-08.1353.1&s=julian+morris#g1355.1).

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Links to other organisations

As well as supporting a variety of think-tanks, the IPN has particularly close links with the following groups:

Historically, the IPN can be seen as a UK-based version of the Atlas Foundation. It was founded by Antony Fisher in the UK as the International Institute for Economic Research (IIER) in 1971.

Fisher went on to found the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the USA in 1981, and from this point the IIER traded as Atlas Foundation UK. The organisation underwent a further rebranding in 2001, when its income increased 60-fold and it changed its working name to IPN (it is still officially registered as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation (UK)). In the USA, the Atlas Foundation also provides training and funding to start libertarian think-tanks. Fisher also went on to found the influential Institute for Economic Affairs (IEA), a classical liberal think tank based in London.

The director of the IPN is Julian Morris, who once worked for Roger Bate at the IEA. Bate is also a fellow at the Washington-based Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), a leading anti-environmental think tank, where another staff member, Kendra Okonski also used to work. Indeed, the addresses and switchboard number for the CEI and the US office of the IPN used to be identical. [10] (http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/2003Q1/gm.html) IPN has since moved down the hall to Suite 1032 and acquired its own phone and fax numbers.

The IPN is also linked with the Libertarian Alliance a UK organisations whose 2005 conference has Julian Morris listed as a speaker Libertarian Alliance Conference 2005 (http://www.libertarian.co.uk/Conf05.htm)

The IPN is also linked, via its staff and web hosting arrangements, to the Sustainable Development Network. This is a coalition formed in 2001, just in time for the world summit on sustainable development, to back the pro-industry agenda. The coalition includes the US-based AgBio World Foundation, run by C.S. Prakash.

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Staff

(Listed on website)

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Trustees

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Previous Staff

(prior to 2001 re-branding)

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Members

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SourceWatch Resources

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External Links

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IPN publications


Note: The International Policy Network has disputed the accuracy and fairness of a previous version of this article:
its rebuttal can be found here (http://www.policynetwork.net/uploaded/pdf/sourcewatch-IPN.pdf) (78KB PDF).
Retrieved from "http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=International_Policy_Network"

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