History
The organisation was first established in 1960 as the International Organisation of Consumers Unions (IOCU) by national consumer organisations. The original members recognised that they could build upon their individual strengths by working across national borders. The organisation then rapidly grew and soon became established as the voice of the international consumer movement on issues such as: product and food standards, health and patients’ rights, the environment and sustainable consumption, and the regulation of international trade and public utilities.
The founding of IOCU was initially planned by Elizabeth Schadee, who would later chair the board of Holland's Consumentenbond, and Caspar Brook, who was the first director of the England's Consumers' Association. The two proposed an international conference to make plans that consumer product testing organizations worldwide should work more closely together. The United States organization Consumers Union provided US$10,000 at the direction of Colston Warne to help fund the event. In January 1960, these three organizations sponsored the First International Conference on Consumer Testing in The Hague. Thirty-four people representing seventeen consumer organizations in fourteen countries attended to discuss product testing and founding the International Organization of Consumers Unions as an international organization. Belgium's Association des Consommateurs and the Australian Consumers' Association joined the three conference sponsors as the five founding organizations who would provide representatives for the international organization's initial council.
Read more about this topic: Consumers International
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)
“... all big changes in human history have been arrived at slowly and through many compromises.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“Racism is an ism to which everyone in the world today is exposed; for or against, we must take sides. And the history of the future will differ according to the decision which we make.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)