The Nestlé boycott was one of the first successful international consumer boycott campaigns. In May 1974, the Third World Action Group (Arbeitsgruppe Dritte Welt, AG3W) in Berne, Switzerland, published a brochure with the title "Nestlé tötet Babies"("Nestlé kills Babies"), criticizing the ruthless infant formula marketing of the Swiss multinational. It was a translation of a publication of the British organisation War on Want, with the more prudent title "The Baby Killer". Nestlé sued the action group—and we said we would prove our claim. I had been a member of the group for quite some time, but as I did not have a Swiss passport, I preferred not to be one of the defendants. In the following years, I coordinated the press documentation in five languages, edited a book on the case, and later travelled to the US to coordinate international activities. Indeed, the AG3W succeeded in sustaining a court case with renowned international witnesses for over two years, resulting in a sentence that formally found the group members guilty of defamation, but affirmed the company's moral responsibility for the death or injury of infants.  The international press intensely followed the case. Action and boycott groups were formed in many countries. While we did not think that a boycott in Switzerland would have many followers, the boycott organisation in the US had up to 20 employees and succeeded in effectively hurting Nestlé's sales. In 1979, the International Baby Food Action Network IBFAN was founded, and the AG3W stopped working on the issue. In 1981, the US Senate held a hearing on the issue; that same year, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution that included a code of conduct. In 1984, the boycott was called off as Nestlé promised to fully comply with the WHO/UNICEF code, but the conflict has flared up again and again. What impressed me most was the real consequences on the ground:  In many cases, e.g. in a hospital in the Philippines, infant mortality was reduced drastically, after the doctors, inspired by our campaign, dared to chase infant formula representatives from the maternity wards. The success of this campaign motivated me to leave academia after my graduation and to become a journalist.

Main actors in the AG3W were: Rudolf H. Strahm, Christoph Kurth, John Schmocker, Ruggero Schleicher-Tappeser, Esther and Andres Enderli, Bruno Gurtner. Among the AG3W publications:

• Flaschenpost, 1975. pdf-de
• Information for the press 1, March 1975. pdf_de, pdf_en
• Information for the press 2, November 1975. pdf_de, pdf_en
• Information for the press 3, February 1976. pdf_de, pdf_en
• Information for the press 4, May 1976. pdf_de, pdf_en
• Information for the press 5, December 1976. pdf_de, pdf_en
• Information for the press 6, November 1978. pdf_de, pdf_en
• AG3W (1976): Exportinteressen gegen Muttermilch, rororo, Rowohlt, Reinbek. Book de