Abstract

"From Boardroom to Negotiating Table: Alusuisse, UNCTAD, and the Politics of Technology and Resources in the 1970s"

Sandra Bott, University of Lausanne (sandra.bott@unil.ch)

This paper examines how Swiss multinational corporations in the aluminium sector engaged with international debates on resource sovereignty and commodity regulation during the 1970s. Within the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), countries of the Global South sought to reshape the global economic order through initiatives associated with the New International Economic Order (NIEO), including commodity price stabilization, producer cooperation, and the regulation of multinational corporations. These proposals challenged the interests of industrialized economies dependent on imported raw materials. Drawing on Swiss archival sources — including the papers of Paul Rudolf Jolles, records of the Swiss Trade Division, and the business archives of Alusuisse — this paper reconstructs the mechanisms through which corporate expertise informed Switzerland’s diplomatic positions. It argues that Swiss multinational firms did not merely react to UNCTAD’s regulatory initiatives. Through institutionalized consultation mechanisms linking government officials, business associations, and major firms, corporate actors actively shaped Switzerland’s negotiating strategy. Faced with bauxite nationalizations and proposals to regulate technology transfers, Alusuisse sought to preserve contractual arrangements that enabled control over global production networks through technological expertise rather than majority ownership. By tracing the connections between corporate strategy and diplomatic negotiation, the paper shows how multinational firms contributed to industrialized countries’ resistance to binding international regulatory frameworks in the 1970s.