Milking the Third World? Humanitarianism, Capitalism, and the Moral Economy of the Nestlé Boycott.

NESTLE SA; HISTORY of boycotts; CONSUMER activism; INFANT formulas; BREASTFEEDING; BUSINESS ethics; UNICEF; WORLD Health Organization; TWENTIETH century; HISTORY

The article discusses the international boycott of Nestlé products begun in the 1970s in an effort to block Western food companies from distributing baby formula in Africa. The boycott ended in 1984 when the company signed the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes created by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to regulate global corporate responsibility. Topics include humanitarianism, corporate ethics, breast feeding, religion and world problems, consumer activism, and feminism.