The Group of 7/8
Hugo Dobson’s new book, The Group of 7/8, is a highly accessible, up-to-date introduction to the history, present and future of the G7/8 summits. Part of Routledge’s leading Global Institutions Series, this book aims to explore the role that the G8 plays and will play in global governance. The general consensus amongst researchers is to deny that the G8 is an institution and should therefore not be included in topics such as global governance. Dobson describes it as the world’s biggest think-tank on global governance; unlike any legalized established institution, the Group of 7/8 acts as a forum where ideas can be floated, discussed, and if successful, delegated to the relevant body for implementation. So, how can one begin to understand the G8 and its position in global governance? Hugo Dobson proceeds to examine this question in terms of the G8’s relationship to the more formal and truly institutionalized mechanisms of global governance; like the United Nations (UN), World Bank (WB) and World Trade Organization (WTO). Divided into six instructive chapters, this book provides an innovative and informative contribution to understanding the dynamics of global governance and is especially relevant to promoting this area of investigation in the future. To ensure this broad appeal and accessibility, Dobson’s holistic understanding of the summit is addressed through thematic points of reference and key texts are highlighted in an annotated bibliography. The Group of 7/8: • • •
addresses the history and development of the summit; organization and functioning; perspectives of member states; achievements and failures; criticisms and challenges and future directions draws upon extant literature in order to provide the reader with a single, more concise point-of-entry acts as a guide to the broader field of research and provides suggested further reading.
Written in a clear and structured manner, The Group of 7/8 is a core introductory guide and an essential purchase for students and professionals alike in the field of international relations. Hugo Dobson is a Senior Lecturer at the National Institute of Japanese Studies and School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield.
The Global Institutions Series Edited by Thomas G. Weiss (The CUNY Graduate Center, New York, USA) and
Rorden Wilkinson (University of Manchester, UK)
The Global Institutions series is designed to provide readers with comprehensive, accessible, and informative guides to the history, structure, and activities of key international organizations. Every volume stands on its own as a thorough and insightful treatment of a particular topic, but the series as a whole contributes to a coherent and complementary portrait of the phenomenon of global institutions at the dawn of the millennium. Books are written by recognized experts, conform to a similar structure, and cover a range of themes and debates common to the series. These areas of shared concern include the general purpose and rationale for organizations, developments over time, membership, structure, decision-making procedures, and key functions. Moreover, current debates are placed in historical perspective alongside informed analysis and critique. Each book also contains an annotated bibliography and guide to electronic information as well as any annexes appropriate to the subject matter at hand. The volumes currently published or under contract include: The United Nations and Human Rights (2005) A Guide for a New Era by Julie A. Mertus (American University) The UN Secretary-General and Secretariat (2005) by Leon Gordenker (Princeton University)
United Nations Global Conferences (2005) by Michael G. Schechter (Michigan State University) The UN General Assembly (2005) by M.J. Peterson (University of Massachusetts, Amherst)
Internal Displacement Conceptualization and Its Consequences (2006) by Thomas G. Weiss (the CUNY Graduate Center) and David A. Korn Global Environmental Institutions (2006) by Elizabeth R. DeSombre (Wellesley College) UN Security Council Practice and Promise (2006) by Edward C. Luck (Columbia University) The World Intellectual Property Organization Resurgence and the Development Agenda (2007) by Chris May (University of the West of England) The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (2007) by Julian Lindley-French (European Union Centre for Security Studies) The International Monetary Fund (2007) by James Raymond Vreeland (Yale University) The Group of 7/8 (2007) by Hugo Dobson (University of Sheffield) The World Economic Forum A Multi-Stakeholder Approach to Global Governance (2007) by Geoffrey Allen Pigman (Bennington College)
The International Committee of the Red Cross A Unique Humanitarian Actor by David P. Forsythe (University of Nebraska) and Barbara Ann Rieffer Flanagan (Central Washington University) UN Conference on Trade and Development by Ian Taylor (University of St. Andrews) A Crisis of Global Institutions? Multilateralism and International Security by Edward Newman (United Nations University) The World Bank From Reconstruction to Development to Equity by Katherine Marshall (Georgetown University) The African Union Past and Future Governance Challenges by Samuel M. Makinda (Murdoch University) and Wafula Okumu (McMaster University) The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development by Richard Woodward (University of Hull) Non-Governmental Organizations in Global Politics by Peter Willetts (City University, London) Multilateralism in the South An Analysis by Jacqueline Anne Braveboy-Wagner (City College of New York)
The European Union by Clive Archer (Manchester Metropolitan University)
The World Health Organization by Kelley Lee (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
The International Labour Organization by Steve Hughes (University of Newcastle)
The World Trade Organization by Bernard Hoekman (World Bank) and Petros Mavroidis (Columbia University)
The Commonwealth(s) and Global Governance by Timothy Shaw (Royal Roads University)
The International Organization for Standardization and the Global Economy Setting Standards by Craig Murphy (Wellesley College) and JoAnne Yates (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe by David J. Galbreath (University of Aberdeen) UNHCR The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection into the Twenty-first Century by Gil Loescher (University of Oxford), James Milner (University of Oxford), and Alexander Betts (University of Oxford)
The International Olympic Committee by Jean-Loup Chappelet (IDHEAP Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration) and Btrenda KüblerMabbott
For further information regarding the series, please contact: Craig Fowlie, Publisher, Politics & International Studies Taylor & Francis 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN, UK +44 (0)207 842 2057 Tel. +44 (0)207 842 2302 Fax
[email protected] www.routledge.com
The Group of 7/8 Hugo Dobson
First published 2007 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2006. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2007 Hugo Dobson All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN 0-203-02975-5 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN10: 0-415-37018-3 (hbk) ISBN10: 0-415-37014-0 (pbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-37018-9 (hbk) ISBN13: 978-0-415-37014-1 (pbk)
Contents
List of Boxes Foreword Preface List of Abbreviations Introduction
viii ix xii xiv xv
1
History and Development
2
Organization and Functioning
18
3
Perspectives of Member States
37
4
Achievements and Failures
60
5
Criticisms and Challenges
81
6
Future Directions
94
Notes Select Bibliography and Electronic Resources Index
1
102 112 115
List of Boxes
1.1 1.2 2.1 2.2 2.3
Summit Dates and Venues, 1975–2007 Success and Failure of Summits, 1975–2005 Summit Attendance, 1975–2005 Overlap in Attendance, 1975–2005 Summit Working Schedule – Gleneagles Summit, 6–8 July 2005 4.1 The G7/8 and Terrorism, 1978–2005
3 16 20 23 27 71
Foreword
The current volume is the eleventh in a new and dynamic series on “global institutions.” The series strives (and, we believe, succeeds) to provide readers with definitive guides to the most visible aspects of what we know as “global governance.” Remarkable as it may seem, there exist relatively few books that offer in-depth treatments of prominent global bodies and processes, much less an entire series of concise and complementary volumes. Those that do exist are either out of date, inaccessible to the non-specialist reader, or seek to develop a specialized understanding of particular aspects of an institution or process rather than offer an overall account of its functioning. Similarly, existing books have often been written in highly technical language or have been crafted “in-house” and are notoriously selfserving and narrow. The advent of electronic media has helped by making information, documents, and resolutions of international organizations more widely available, but it has also complicated matters. The growing reliance on the Internet and other electronic methods of finding information about key international organizations and processes has served, ironically, to limit the educational materials to which most readers have ready access – namely, books. Public relations documents, raw data, and loosely refereed web sites do not make for intelligent analysis. Official publications compete with a vast amount of electronically available information, much of which is suspect because of its ideological or self-promoting slant. Paradoxically, the growing range of purportedly independent web sites offering analyses of the activities of particular organizations have emerged, but one inadvertent consequence has been to frustrate access to basic, authoritative, critical, and well-researched texts. The market for such has actually been reduced by the ready availability of varying quality electronic materials.
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Foreword
For those of us who teach, research, and practice in the area, this access to information has been at best frustrating. We were delighted, then, when Routledge saw the value of a series that bucks this trend and provides key reference points to the most significant global institutions. They are betting that serious students and professionals will want serious analyses. We have assembled a first-rate line-up of authors to address that market. Our intention, then, is to provide onestop shopping for all readers – students (both undergraduate and postgraduate), interested negotiators, diplomats, practitioners from nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations, and interested parties alike – seeking information about the most prominent institutional aspects of global governance.
The G7/8 The G7/8 is a curiosity among global institutions. Its role as a forum for promoting dialogue among the most powerful states on the most pressing of global issues gives it a significance that few others can boast. Yet, the G7/8 is not a formal institution in the sense that it does not have the trappings normally associated with an intergovernmental body. It does not operate according to a formal set of rules and procedures; and it is without a formal headquarters and accompanying secretariat. Instead, it seeks to influence the pattern of world events informally by encouraging other states and international institutions to pursue particular courses of action. For many, the informality of the G7/8 lends it strength. Equally, this informality has bred a perception that the G7/8 is little more than a cabal – an unelected and self-appointed gathering constructed to further a narrow set of economic and political interests. Unsurprisingly, then, G7/8 summits have become notable not just for discussions of and interventions in world politics; they have also become focal points for public demonstrations. The Jubilee 2000 movement (the precursor to the Drop the Debt/Make Poverty History campaign), for instance, saw fit to raise awareness of the plight of the world’s poor at its Birmingham summit in 1998 by encircling the gathering with a human chain. G7/8 summits have also periodically become engulfed in the politics of the moment, illustrated most tragically by the timing of the July 2005 London terrorist bombings to coincide with the Gleneagles Summit. For all its profile, what actually happens during G7/8 summits and how the institution seeks to wield influence in world affairs is not widely understood. Indeed, the public profile of the G7/8 combined
Foreword
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with the relative lack of knowledge about how it functions creates a compelling paradox. We were delighted, then, when Hugo Dobson agreed to write a book for us. Dobson is highly regarded and has written widely on the G7/8 and global governance more generally. His pedigree shows. He offers a cogent and concise account that is unrivalled in the literature. This book provides a comprehensive insight into the development of the G7/8 from a meeting of the six leading industrial states in 1975, through the expansion of summits to include, first, Canada and then Russia, to the challenges that confront the organization today. Dobson’s account is not, however, just about how the institution functions and the manner in which it has developed and changed over time. It also contains portraits of the personalities and personal interactions of the leaders and officials involved as well as the impact that they have had on the successes and failures of summits. Dobson’s book is a first-rate account. We are proud to include it in our series. It is a must-read; an essential resource for all interested in global governance and world affairs. We heartily recommend it to you and welcome any feedback that you may have. Thomas G. Weiss, (The CUNY Graduate Center, New York, USA) Rorden Wilkinson, (University of Manchester, UK) July 2006
Preface
The writing of this book began during the typically fickle English summer of 2005 when one of the most high-profile summit meetings of the Group of Eight (G8) in its thirty-year history took place at the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland. Over the space of a week, the G8 was catapulted into the world’s attention, more so than any other previous summit meeting. On 2 July 2005, an unprecedented series of concerts was held across the globe to raise awareness of African aid and debt issues and place pressure on the meeting of G8 leaders that began four days later. That same day, a large and peaceful march of over 225,000 demonstrators took place in Edinburgh with largely the same objectives but less celebrity endorsement and media attention. The summit began on 6 July 2005, the same day as London was announced as the host city for the 2012 Olympic Games, thereby gazumping Paris. However, on the following day, a series of suicide bombings killed over fifty people in London. Prime Minister Tony Blair travelled straight to London but returned to Scotland in the evening of the same day to continue hosting the summit and, in keeping with tradition, issued a series of declarations and pledges on its final day, 8 July 2005. Historically, G8 summits have been low-key affairs lasting two or three days and resulting in uninspiring statements and communiqués “laced . . . with the anaesthetizing gunk of globocratese.”1 However, this series of events in July 2005 made for an unusually high-profile summit. Although the G8 was originally a Group of Six (G6), created in 1975 to be an ad hoc forum that would foster the informal discussion of macroeconomic problems amongst the leaders of the world’s most industrialized countries, by 2005 it had expanded to eight members and had become identified as the most salient vehicle for addressing issues such as climate change and African debt – issues for which the summit was never conceived. As a result, summit-watchers at
Preface
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Gleneagles were confronted with the peculiar situation that the object of their interest, which had for so long been overlooked or marginalized, was suddenly accorded unprecedented attention and was now deemed to be “sexy.” This summit even provided the backdrop for a novel by the Scottish crime writer Ian Rankin. At the time of writing, the G8’s future appears more secure than it ever has been in its history and the once resonant calls for its disbandment have largely disappeared from the mainstream and become limited to a small group of anti-capitalist, anti-globalization protesters. In this light, there has never been a more timely occasion for the publication of a book – short though it may be – of this nature. It intends to provide the reader with both a one-stop point of reference whereby s/he can acquire a more nuanced understanding of the G8 summit process than appears in newspaper headlines, and a point of departure for more detailed reading on specific issues. When I began exploring the G8 seven years ago, no such book existed. However, thanks to the efforts of the G8 Research Group at Toronto University and the ever-expanding G8 and Global Governance series published through Ashgate, this situation has changed radically and a constantly evolving canon constituting the field of G8 studies has emerged.2 This book draws upon these resources and extant literature – in addition to actual summit documentation – in order to provide the reader with a single and more concise point-of-entry into this genuinely fascinating subject. It is hoped that after reading this book and acquiring a condensed understanding of the G8 summit process and its history, the reader will begin to explore the more detailed literature mentioned above and will also be equipped with a lens for making sense of thirty years of international and domestic politics. In the writing of this book, there are a number of people to whom I am indebted. I am extremely grateful to Rorden Wilkinson and Thomas Weiss for feedback on previous drafts of this book, and in particular for instigating the Global Institutions series and inviting me to contribute. In addition, I would like to thank everyone at the G8 Research Center at Toronto University, especially Peter Hajndi, for all their support and particularly for the use of the image on the cover of this book. Finally, everyone at Routledge, especially Craig Fowlie, Nadia Seemungal, and Natalja Mortensen, deserve special mention for their efficiency and patience. Hugo Dobson Sheffield, March 2006
List of Abbreviations
DOT force DPRK EC EEC EU G4 G5 G6 G7 G8 G20 G24 GATT HIV/AIDS ICT IEA IMF L20 NGOs OECD UK UN UNGA UNSC US USTR WEF WHO WMD WTO WWII
Digital Opportunities Taskforce Democratic People’s Republic of Korea European Community European Economic Community European Union Group of Four Group of Five Group of Six Group of Seven Group of Eight Group of Twenty Group of Twenty-Four General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade Human Immunodeficiency Virus/ Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome Information and Communications Technology International Energy Agency International Monetary Fund Group of Twenty Leaders Non-Governmental Organizations Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development United Kingdom United Nations United Nations General Assembly United Nations Security Council United States United States Trade Representative World Economic Forum World Health Organization Weapons of Mass Destruction World Trade Organization World War Two
Introduction
The G8, as we know it today, presents a quandary. This book is included within a series entitled “Global Institutions,” yet there is a consensus amongst researchers and observers of the summit that the G8 is not an institution. This is summed up in the amusing and oftquoted statement by the late Michael Hodges of the London School of Economics, “[t]he G8 is not an institution . . . Institutions have clear organizational centres, the most important characteristics of which in practice, are often their cafeterias and pension plans.”1 Hodges provides us with the following characterization: The G7/8 is a forum, rather than an institution. It is useful as a closed international club of capitalist governments trying to raise consciousness, set an agenda, create networks, prod other institutions to do things that they should be doing, and, in some cases, to help create institutions that are suited to a particular task.2 So, if the G8 is a forum, why is it included in a series of books attempting to introduce the reader to the chief institutions of global governance? Similar contradictions and confusion are reflected in its nomenclature over the years. A group of the “most industrialized countries” may have been an accurate description of these select countries in the 1970s, but by the 2000s industrialization was no longer an accurate measure of development and progress: the members of the G8 had entered a stage of post-industrialization and there were emerging and upcoming major industrialized countries that were not included in the G8. The “richest countries on earth” has also been touted as a possible name but this definition does not embrace Russia, which is clearly not in the same league as the other summit members by any index. The “most powerful countries on earth” raises questions as regards the nature of power and again ignores many regionally influential countries
xvi
Introduction
that are excluded from the G8 summit process. It is a sad truth that much of the confusion over what the G8 actually is and what we should call it are the results of a gap in the extant literature that has only recently been filled. In fact, it could be argued that the G8 was traditionally probably the least written about and least understood entity in the study of international relations.3 The G8 was originally the G6 of the most industrialized countries when it met for the first time at the château of Rambouillet in the Paris suburbs in November 1975 to discuss common macroeconomic problems facing the leaders of the six attending countries. Its creators, French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, intended for it to be a one-off, informal gathering of like-minded politicians. They hoped that the relaxed and frank atmosphere of the meetings they had attended when both finance ministers of their respective countries could be replicated at the highest level. Despite these intentions, the six met again the following year in San Juan as a Group of Seven (G7) with the addition of Canada. Since then, the range of discussion has expanded beyond economic issues to include the issues of the day, from the collapse of the Soviet Union via international terrorism to third world debt relief and aid, or climate change. Membership of the G8 has also changed, though not nearly as drastically as the focus of its discussions. As mentioned above, Canada joined in 1976 although its membership had been touted at the first meeting. In addition, at the 1997 Denver Summit, Russia participated for the first time at what was dubbed the “Summit of the Eight.” The following year at the 1998 Birmingham Summit the term “G8” was used for the first time – this was the culmination of an evolving presence within the G8 since before the end of the Cold War. Today, Russia is a fully integrated member and hosted its first summit in 2006. More recently (and partly as a result of Russia’s inclusion), China has often been touted as a potential member, although this raises a number of controversial issues, which will be explored in more detail in Chapter 3. So, although often mentioned in the same breath as the United Nations (UN), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO), the G8 stands out as an oddity. Unlike these legally established institutions of global governance, the G8 does not have a charter, constitution or any legal status; it does not have formalized rules of membership or procedures for dismissing members; it has no fixed agenda or format; and it has no means of enforcing its decisions beyond moral weight. So, how can we begin to understand the G8 and its position in global governance? As Rorden Wilkinson has argued, “the key to understanding contemporary
Introduction xvii global governance is the capacity to identify the range of actors involved in the act of management, as well as to uncover the variety of ways in which they are connected to one another.”4 Concurring with this statement and with the objective of promoting this area of investigation, the following chapters will argue that the most useful and edifying way to think of the G8 is in terms of its relationships to the more formal and truly institutionalized mechanisms of global governance. Unlike the UN, World Bank, IMF and WTO, the G8 plays more of an overarching role, a forum where ideas can be floated, discussed, and, if successful, delegated to the relevant body for implementation. The G8 essentially acts as the world’s biggest think-tank on global governance and seeks to coordinate the actions of the institutions of global governance. It may help to think of the G8 as a plate-spinner and the plates it spins as the institutions and organizations mentioned above and explored in the rest of this series. In this way it becomes clear why it should be included in any discussion of global governance. To this end, the following chapters provide the reader with a holistic, but by necessity brief, understanding of the summit but also stand as thematic points of reference in their own right. Chapter 1 furnishes the reader with an understanding of the genesis of the G8 over thirty years, which also serves as a potted history of international politics. This chapter also brings into relief the widening of the G8’s agenda to encompass a range of contemporary issues, traces the expansion of its membership, and unravels the numerous other groups that adopt the prefix “G.” Chapter 2 adumbrates the way in which the G8 is organized and functions, and in the process characterizes the kind of entity it is and its interconnectedness with several institutions explored elsewhere in this series. Chapter 3 shifts the focus to the individual members and their positions and attitudes towards the G8 summit process, as well as looking towards potential new members. Chapter 4 explores the chief areas addressed by the G8 in terms of economic, political, social, and security issues, pointing to the successes it has scored and the failures for which it has been responsible. Chapter 5 highlights criticisms that have been levelled at the G8 and how it has sought to address them. Finally, Chapter 6 concludes this book by looking at the possible directions and potential problems that the G8 will have to confront in the future.
1
History and Development
This chapter will sketch, first of all, the pre-history of the G8 through historical precedence and the changes in the international system of the early 1970s that provided the impetus for the first summit meeting at Rambouillet in November 1975. Thirty-one summits have been held (see Box 1.1) and to make sense of this history the chapter will be structured on the basis of summit cycles. A summit cycle represents a period of seven years during which time each country hosts the summit once. This hosting follows the order of: France, the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), Germany, Japan, Italy, and finally Canada, before returning to France at the beginning of the next cycle. Four summit cycles have been completed: 1975–81, 1982–88, 1989–95, and 1996–2002. We are currently in the middle of the fifth summit cycle that began in 2003 and will end in 2010. This cycle will last eight, rather than seven, years as a result of the addition of Russia. Although an artificial method of dividing up time and organizing the history of the summit, this structure clarifies the changing agenda from the chiefly macroeconomic concerns of the first cycle, via the political and security concerns of the second cycle and the handling of the Soviet Union/Russia during the third and fourth cycles, to the emphasis placed on Africa and terrorism in the fourth and fifth cycles. Moreover, as the G7/8 has never operated in accordance with any formal membership criteria, this historical review will highlight the changing membership of the summit process from the original six that met at Rambouillet through the inclusion of Canada from 1976 and the EU from 1977 to the gradual admission of Russia throughout the 1990s and 2000s. In addition, this historical review will address institutional depth in the summit process and clarify any confusion in the nomenclature amongst the “gaggle of Gs.”1
2 History and Development
Pre-history As explained in the Introduction, the G7/8 is neither an international organization nor a global institution like the more traditional groupings explored in this series. However, although it is unlike many other current mechanisms of global governance, it is not unique and a historical precedence does exist: the Concert of Europe. The Concert of Europe existed in one form or another from its creation in the last years and immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars until its final demise with the outbreak of World War I. Napoleon’s attempted domination of the European continent “finally convinced the statesmen of Europe, hard persons to teach, that what was at risk was not merely certain goods in international politics (peace, security, territorial integrity) but the very life principle of European politics which made these goods and others possible . . . [and thus, they] finally and suddenly succeeded in learning how to conduct international politics differently and better.”2 In short, the Concert of Europe was the manifestation of this learning process. Its goal was to bring together representatives of the leading great powers of the day on an informal and ad hoc basis in order to discuss issues of common interest as they arose. Never did the Concert constitute anything as formal as an organization, an institution or a regime. Rather, it was useful as a forum for discussion amongst the self-elected and recognized European great powers that would seek to maintain the status quo and accommodate changes in the balance of power when necessary. It is no coincidence that the embryonic summit process was originally credited as being the pet project of US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, author of one of the main studies of nineteenth-century diplomacy, A World Restored, who “consciously sought to construct the modern equivalent of the nineteenth-century Concert of Europe.”3 This first summit at Rambouillet found its origins not only in the Concert of Europe but also in the first informal meeting of the Group of Four (G4) French, West German, UK, and US finance ministers in the White House library in March 1973, later joined by Japan to form the Group of Five (G5), to discuss the state of the international monetary system. The perceived success of this relaxed and frank style of meeting provided the impetus behind the Rambouillet meeting, in order “to recreate at the highest level the same sort of direct and informal exchange.”4 Or, in the words of renowned summit-watcher, Sir Nicholas Bayne: The G7 summit was conceived as a personal encounter of the leaders of the world’s most powerful economies. The founders
Box 1.1 Summit Dates and Venues, 1975–2007 Rambouillet, France San Juan, Puerto Rico, US London, UK Bonn, West Germany Tokyo, Japan Venice, Italy Ottawa, Canada Versailles, France Williamsburg, US London, UK Bonn, West Germany Tokyo, Japan Venice, Italy Toronto, Canada Paris, France Houston, US London, UK Munich, Germany Tokyo, Japan Naples, Italy Halifax, Canada Lyon, France Denver, US Birmingham, UK Cologne, Germany Okinawa, Japan Genoa, Italy Kananaskis, Canada Evian, France Sea Island, US Gleneagles, UK St Petersburg, Russia Heiligendamm, Germany
15–17 November 1975 27–28 June 1976 7–8 May 1977 16–17 July 1978 28–29 June 1979 22–23 June 1980 20–21 July 1981 4–6 June 1982 28–30 May 1983 7–9 June 1984 2–4 May 1985 4–6 May 1986 8–10 June 1987 19–21 June 1988 14–16 July 1989 9–11 July 1990 15–17 July 1991 6–8 July 1992 7–9 July 1993 8–10 July 1994 15–17 June 1995 27–29 June 1996 20–22 June 1997 15–17 May 1998 18–20 June 1999 21–23 July 2000 20–22 July 2001 26–27 June 2002 1–3 June 2003 8–10 June 2004 6–8 July 2005 15–17 July 2006 6–8 June 2007
Note: For updated and further details on delegations and summit documentations, see http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/index.htm
4
History and Development believed that bringing the heads of government together would lead them to understand better both the domestic problems of their peers and the international responsibilities they all shared. This would enable them to solve, through personal interaction and original ideas, problems that had baffled their bureaucrats. The bureaucrats themselves ought to be kept out of the process entirely.5
Thus, when the six leaders met at Rambouillet for the first time in November 1975, it may have been a refreshing new approach to achieving diplomatic solutions at the highest political level, but it was not a totally alien experience for many of them.
The First Cycle of Summitry, 1975–81 Within this first seven-year cycle, the structure of the international system shifted from one of détente and emerging interdependence to a reemergence of Cold War tensions that would intensify during the second cycle of summitry. The summit was regarded as a novel form for fostering discussion of and coordination in macroeconomic and energy policies amongst the leading free-market economies in reaction to the chaos caused by the collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the sudden rise in oil prices instigated by the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries. Thus, some of the main agenda items demanding the summit’s attention were the encouragement of noninflationary growth, free trade, and responsible oil consumption. However, other international events of a more political nature vied for the summiteers’ attention during this period, including the spate of disparate terrorist attacks, especially airplane hijackings, which occurred during the 1970s, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which heralded the reintensification of East–West tensions that would become a chief theme of the summit in its second cycle. The first cycle of the summit also represents a process of institutionalization as the summit evolved from being a path-breaking and ad hoc meeting of leaders centring on macroeconomic policy coordination to encompassing a broad range of issues and evolving into a regular date in the calendar of international affairs. Thus, as will be seen below, a range of economic issues featured during this period’s summit discussions, such as the promotion of non-inflationary growth, the role of the major economies of Japan, the US and West Germany as engines for this growth, the creation of exchange rate stability, and the conclusion of multilateral trade negotiations, namely the Tokyo
History and Development 5 Round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). However, it was not long before this original and exclusive focus on economic issues was shed. Even at an early stage, a distinct political hue came into relief, as seen in the 1978 Bonn Declaration on Hijacking and discussion at the 1980 Venice Summit of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the seizure of the US embassy in Teheran by Iranian fundamentalists. Concomitantly, as the summits became regularly held meetings, a summit bureaucracy evolved that was characterized by the central role of the leaders’ advisors, the sherpas, in summit preparations and a range of meetings in the year preceding the summit to decide the upcoming agenda – a subject that will be explained in more detail in the following chapter. When the six leaders met at the French president’s summer residence, the fourteenth-century château of Rambouillet, thirty miles southwest of Paris, in November 1975, discussions focussed upon macroeconomic policies that would promote economic recovery from the oil crisis, especially interest rates and international trade. However, the link between economics and politics was immediately drawn at this early stage when Article 2 of the Rambouillet declaration stated that “We came together because of shared beliefs and shared responsibilities. We are each responsible for the government of an open, democratic society, dedicated to individual liberty and social advancement. Our success will strengthen, indeed is essential to, democratic societies everywhere.”6 This first summit proved to be partly a getting-to-know-you exercise and partly an opportunity to declare intentions rather than make commitments. Although there was no concrete plan to meet again the following year, US President Gerald Ford perceived the potential boost a successful summit could have to his chances of re-election and a second summit meeting was held in US-occupied San Juan in June 1976, only seven months after the first summit. Taking place at the extravagant Dorado beach hotel resort, this summit was (and still is) widely recognized as lacking in substance and was portrayed in the press more as a summer holiday for the world’s leaders than in terms of pressing issues and substantial outcomes. The only achievement was to admit Canada to form the G7, thereby addressing the imbalance between North American and European membership. The third summit was held in London in May 1977 and saw the word “economic” dropped from the summit’s title in recognition of the expansion of the summit’s discussions into a range of other areas. In this light, issues such as the peaceful use of nuclear energy and nuclear non-proliferation were included in the final communiqué delivered at the conclusion. However, discussion concentrated on the original main
6
History and Development
themes of sustaining economic recovery through the “locomotive theory” whereby each participant agreed to meet specific growth targets, the suppression of inflation, and the promotion of free trade through the successful conclusion of the Tokyo Round. The President of the Commission of the European Economic Community (EEC), Roy Jenkins, joined the seven as a guest from this summit onwards. The logic behind this was that the smaller European states were not being represented at the summit table but in practice this led to the over-representation of Europe. Thereafter, the order of summithosting emerged organically and became the accepted order for the next three cycles. The following year’s Bonn Summit saw the abandonment of the “locomotive theory” but continued to focus attention on many of the themes discussed at previous summits and a number of concrete pledges as regards meeting growth targets, limiting oil consumption, and addressing trade surpluses and deficits were made. This summit also stands out for the specific declaration issued on terrorism and aircraft hijacking whereby “in cases where a country refuses extradition or prosecution of those who have hijacked an aircraft and/or do not return such aircraft, the Heads of State and Government are jointly resolved that their governments shall take immediate action to cease all flights to that country. At the same time, their governments will initiate action to halt all incoming flights from that country or from any country by the airlines of the country concerned.”7 The 1979 Tokyo Summit was the first to be hosted in Asia and concentrated almost to the exclusion of other items on oil consumption and the increase in the price of oil. The summit was a success in that oil import targets were agreed at the eleventh hour but energy continued to be the most important topic of discussion at the 1980 Venice Summit. However, international tensions could not be ignored and a series of political declarations were made on a number of issues that had refused to go away, namely the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, refugees, hostage-taking and airplane hijacking. The 1981 Ottawa Summit completed the first round of hosting the summit amongst the seven summit members and repeated the practice of releasing a series of political declarations on a range of subjects such as East–West tensions, international terrorism, the resolution of the Arab–Israeli conflict, and refugees. As regards trade issues, this summit also acted as the handmaiden to the first sub- summit-level meeting of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), European Community (EC) Trade Commissioner, and Canadian and Japanese trade ministers, known as the trade ministers’ quadrilateral, or the Quad.
History and Development 7 Bayne has pointed to the major achievements of this round of summitry as being monetary reform (1975), trade, growth, and nuclear power (1977), growth, energy and trade (1978), energy (1979), Afghanistan and energy (1980), and the creation of the Quad (1981).8 Not only does the 1976 San Juan Summit stand out as a failure within this cycle with no substantive outcomes, macroeconomic issues – the raison d’être for the creation of the summit – clearly dominated the remit of discussions during this period. However, a range of other issues would come to occupy an increasing amount of the summiteers’ attention in the following cycle.
The Second Cycle of Summitry, 1982–88 The 1980s saw an intensification of East–West tensions that led to the stationing of missiles in Europe by both sides and only began to thaw after the appointment of Mikhail Gorbachev as president of the Soviet Union in 1985. At the same time, a number of connected and unconnected regional disputes, such as the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands and consequent war with the UK, the situation in the Middle East, the Iran–Iraq War, and ongoing instability in Cambodia, demanded the attention of the international community. It was only to be expected that these political and security tensions would impact upon the summit’s discussions and shape its agenda. However, the management of various macroeconomic issues was still firmly on the agenda. Energy issues and the oil crisis had essentially been resolved during the previous cycle, but the promotion of trade liberalization and a starting date for the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations came to be the summiteers’ main economic concerns. The second cycle of the summit can be regarded in some ways as a neo-liberal golden era. There was a similar, although accidental, length in the tenure and outlook of the leaders – epitomized by US President Ronald Reagan (1980–88), UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1979–90), and Japanese Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro (1982–87) – of the kind adumbrated in the Introduction that was regarded as the impetus for the first meeting at Rambouillet and crucial to the effective functioning of groupings like the summit and the Concert of Europe. However, this period was also described at the time as one in which “a new cohort of leaders [had] come to power, less internationalist in outlook and less committed to using summits to solve economic problems.”9 Or, in other words but in a similar vein, during the 1980s “[t]he G7 summit ceased to be an economic coordinating mechanism and became a clubby opportunity for informal talks among world leaders,
8
History and Development
talks that were often useful but strayed away from the original purpose of the summits.”10 Thus, during this period, the increasing political nature of the summit became evident as a result of the changing structure of the international system at a time of renewed bipolar tension. Although the French hosts aimed to contain discussion to issues surrounding economic growth and the fact that the lasting result of the first summit in this second cycle was the creation of a financial surveillance mechanism including the IMF, the 1982 Versailles Summit still found time to discuss the political and security issues of the day, namely East–West tensions, the Falklands War, and the Arab–Israeli conflict. In addition, one new development was that this summit saw the President of the European Council attend. The following year at Williamsburg witnessed the clearest departure from the economic agenda to date, with East–West tensions at their height, and focussed upon the threat of Soviet medium-range missiles to Europe and Asia. In addition, this summit also saw Japan, largely as a result of its hawkish Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro, actively engage in discussions of international security and become solidly identified with the Western camp. To this end, Article 6 of the Williamsburg Declaration stressed that “The security of our countries is indivisible and must be approached on a global basis.”11 In contrast, the 1984 London Summit was much more low key and struck a balance between the discussion of more traditional economic issues (inflationary control and trade liberalization) and pressing political and security problems (the Iran–Iraq War and terrorism). The 1985 Bonn Summit focussed on trade and is widely recognized as the biggest failure in the summit’s history. Not only did it fail to produce any results of worth, “it actually made matters worse than before.”12 Disagreements over the starting date of a new round of multilateral trade talks were papered over in the Bonn Economic Declaration, which stated “We strongly endorse the agreement reached by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Ministerial Council that a new GATT round should begin as soon as possible. Most of us think that this should be in 1986 [my emphasis].”13 Despite disagreement in this area, the G7 was united in a political declaration to mark the fortieth anniversary of the end of World War Two (WWII) that called for peace, democracy and prosperity, resolution of East–West differences, and the eventual unification of Germany and Korea.14 The 1986 Tokyo Summit demonstrated the flexibility of a grouping of this sort as it was able to include discussion of the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear plant, which had taken place only days before, and agreed upon the extension of assistance to the Soviet Union.
History and Development 9 International terrorism was an important theme at this summit from the opening day, when five rockets were fired at (and missed) the summit venue in central Tokyo. Anti-terrorism measures including banning the exports of arms to states suspected of supporting or sponsoring terrorism and limiting the diplomatic missions sent abroad by these states were agreed upon, with Libya controversially being singled out as a state supporting terrorism. The Tokyo Summit also set up the G7 finance ministers’ meeting as a free-standing group, into which the G5 was incorporated, meeting three to four times a year. The following year’s Venice Summit was more balanced in its discussion of macroeconomic policies and political issues (East–West tensions, disarmament, and terrorism) but was also more modest in its results. One notable development was the discussion of and declaration related to Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS). At the 1988 Toronto Summit, which concluded the final round of the second cycle of summitry, attention shifted towards debt relief in middle-income and poor countries with a range of measures announced that would provide a framework for other institutions of global governance to address the problem. Bayne’s evaluation of this cycle of summitry points to East–West trade and surveillance (1982), euromissiles (1983), debt (1984), terrorism, surveillance and G7 finance ministers (1986), and debt relief for poor countries (1988).15 Although clearly a less successful cycle of summitry than the first, with two summits resulting in no significant achievement, the shift during this period of renewed East–West tensions towards political and security issues was evident.
The Third Cycle of Summitry, 1989–95 The issues that occupied the attention of the world during this third cycle were the end of the Cold War, the global surge of democratization and how best to provide a soft landing for the countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union after the collapse of Communism. In addition, and as a result, the process of globalization came to be the buzzword of the 1990s to describe the inchoate but emerging post-Cold War international order. This collapse of the bipolar structure of the international system and the issue of handling the former Soviet Union commanded the attention of the summiteers throughout this and the next cycle. Yet, the G7’s policy towards the Soviet Union/Russia was not simply a one-way process; in the end, by embracing the state it was seeking to assist, the very nature of the G7 was drastically altered, and it thereafter evolved
10
History and Development
into the G8. As regards globalization, the summit was as sensitive as ever to the zeitgeist and mentioned the phenomenon for the first time in the 1994 Naples Summit communiqué, “[w]e have gathered at a time of extraordinary change in the world economy. New forms of international interaction are having enormous effects on the lives of our peoples and are leading to the globalization of our economies.”16 New issues, such as the environment, also came to the attention of the summit during this cycle, and, in addition, both “civil society” and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) were cited for the first time in summit documentation. The 1989 Paris Summit responded to international events as they unfolded by focussing upon the collapse of Cold War tensions and the Tiananmen Square massacre that had occurred one month previously. European and American summiteers were eager to impose sanctions upon the Chinese government and use the opportunity of the summit coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution to issue a robust statement on human rights. The Japanese government, in contrast, opposed isolating China and campaigned at this (and the following) summit to soften the summit’s response to China. The steady disintegration of East–West tensions also began to shape the summit’s discussions and this summit can be pinpointed as the startingpoint of Russia’s integration within the G7, as prior to the summit, Mikhail Gorbachev had sent a letter to the summiteers requesting Russia’s participation. One important outcome of the Paris Summit was the creation of the Group of Twenty-Four (G24) countries cooperating with international organizations and concerned with providing assistance to Central and Eastern Europe as they shed Communism. The 1990 Houston Summit took up many of the issues raised previously by focussing upon continuing sanctions against, but the possibility of engagement with, China. However, it was the provision of assistance to the Soviet Union that dominated this summit. France and Germany were particularly keen to provide economic aid. However, the Japanese government was reluctant for fear of a domestic backlash whilst a long-running territorial bilateral dispute between it and the Soviet Union remained unresolved and the Japanese delegation used this and the following two summits to elicit the support of the international community for the resolution of this dispute. The US shared many of Japan’s doubts about Gorbachev’s reforms and supported its cautious position. The discussion of assistance to the Soviet Union continued to dominate the 1991 London Summit, which was notable as the first summit to invite a non-G8
History and Development 11 leader to attend in the shape of the Soviet leader. In fact, this summit was dubbed the “Gorbachev Summit.”17 However, no aid package could be agreed upon and before the next summit was held, Gorbachev had fallen from power and the Soviet Union had disintegrated. Other topics of discussion in London included the strengthening of the UN and the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). With the end of the Cold War, the economic issues for which the G7 was created were pushed to the edges of discussion, or, like the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations, continued to remain unsolved. The 1992 Munich Summit confirmed the provision of US $24 billion in economic assistance to Russia but failed to provide any stimulus to the conclusion of the Uruguay Round. The G7 leaders met with the new Russian President Boris Yeltsin after the summit had formally concluded, representing the next step in Russia’s integration into the summit. The following year’s Tokyo Summit continued to focus on the issue of economic assistance for Russia in much the same fashion as previous summits but was more successful in providing the necessary stimulation to conclude the Uruguay Round. The Japanese hosts attempted to facilitate the invitation of another new guest in the shape of Indonesian President Suharto, but could only secure a presummit meeting with US President Bill Clinton. Tokyo also represented an attempt to reform the G7 summit process itself, reduce the workload and return it to its original objective of a forum for frank and free discussion – reforms that would concretely be realized at the 1998 Birmingham Summit. The 1994 Naples Summit continued Russia’s integration into the summit process by inviting Yeltsin to the political discussions as a full participant. The most important outcome of this summit was the pledge to conduct a comprehensive review of the international financial institutions that would report to the next summit. The questions to be tackled would include: “What framework of institutions will be required to meet these challenges in the 21st century? How can we adapt existing institutions and build new institutions to ensure the future prosperity and security of our people?”18 Once again the summit demonstrated its flexibility to adopt issues as they emerged by placing both the news of the death of President of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) Kim Il-Sung on the second day of the summit and the country’s withdrawal from the International Atomic Energy Agency on the summit’s agenda. The 1995 Halifax Summit concluded this third round of summitry by addressing the challenge set at Naples of reforming international institutions, such as
12
History and Development
the UN (on the occasion of its fiftieth anniversary), the IMF, and World Bank. In addition, a special statement was released calling for restraint in the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. Bayne regards the significant achievements of this summit cycle as being assistance for Central Europe, the environment and debt (1989), trade (1990), assistance for the Soviet Union (1991), trade (1993), bringing Russia into the political debate (1994), and institutional review, IMF and UN reform (1995).19 The summit’s agenda was clearly dominated by the collapse of bipolarity and the integration of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc into the international community, as well as the reform of the institutions that constitute that community.
The Fourth Cycle of Summitry, 1996–2002 During this fourth cycle, international events continued to be framed within an ongoing process of globalization, concretely manifested in the East Asian economic and financial crises of 1997–98. However, other issues, for example international terrorism, were never out of sight. During this period, anti-US terrorism accelerated from the alQaeda bombing of a US military base in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia in June 1996 through to the attacks on New York and Washington D.C. of 11 September 2001. With the subsequent US-led “war on terror,” the unilateralism of the administration of US President George W. Bush would become characteristic of the international behaviour of the leading summit member. The fourth cycle in the summit process represents continuity in the management of Russia and its eventual assimilation as a full summit member. However, at the same time, the summit leaders went through a period of introspection that questioned the aims and praxis of the summit process with the objective of implementing reform, which ultimately led to a rediscovery of its original intent. As mentioned above, various calls had been made for a return to a simplified summit. During the fourth cycle, efforts were made to implement change so that after the profligacy of the 2000 Okinawa Summit and the tragedy of the 2001 Genoa Summit, the 2002 Kananaskis Summit brought the summit process full circle by returning it to its roots as an intimate forum for the frank exchange of opinions. However, this is not to suggest simply a return to the ad hoc, informal, economic summit of Rambouillet. Rather, new initiatives were introduced to make the summit process more open and transparent. Most salient amongst these initiatives was the policy of “outreach” – the invitation of a
History and Development 13 range of leaders of developing countries and NGOs to participate in the summit process. Before the 1996 Lyon Summit took place, a special summit called for by Boris Yeltsin took place in Moscow from 19 to 20 April on nuclear safety. The meeting agreed upon a global ban on nuclear testing through the promotion of the Comprehensive Nuclear-TestBan Treaty and measures to ensure the safety of nuclear power plants and the safe disposal of radioactive waste. The Lyon Summit followed two months later and continued the momentum towards the reform of international institutions by inviting the heads of the UN, IMF, World Bank, and WTO. It also pushed debt relief further up the summit’s agenda – a trajectory it would continue to follow at future summits. With Yeltsin’s participation in much of the economic discussion, the 1997 Denver Summit was also known as the “Summit of the Eight” but the term “G8” was not used due to lingering Japanese opposition. Assistance for Africa was placed high on the agenda but resulted in little in the way of concrete pledges. The 1998 Birmingham Summit was the first summit to be officially called the G8 and continued the trend of hosting the summit away from the host country’s capital. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair realized his predecessor John Major’s goals of stripping down the summit to a more basic and informal meeting by arranging leaders-only meetings and a great deal of the leaders’ time was taken with a discussion of international crime. Birmingham was targeted by Jubilee 2000, a UK church-based NGO, with the goal of placing African debt relief on the agenda – an issue Blair was eager to address. The Jubilee 2000 campaign shifted its focus to the Cologne Summit in 1999, encouraged by the election of the more sympathetic German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The summit itself, continuing the trend of separating the leaders’ and ministers’ meetings, centred around discussion of African debt relief and the continuing promotion of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries programme but failed to realize the complete cancellation of African debt that Jubilee 2000 was demanding. However, this discussion was not to the exclusion of other pressing issues, such as conflict resolution in Kosovo and Indian nuclear testing. The 2000 Okinawa Summit was the first Japanese summit to be held outside of Tokyo and continued the new leaders-only format instigated at Birmingham. The continuing Jubilee 2000 campaign targeted the summit once again, and although the Japanese government invited numerous African leaders to a pre-summit meeting with the G8 leaders, the concrete results were disappointing after the anticipation of the previous year’s summit. The Japanese government placed the emphasis
14
History and Development
very much on the role of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and summit discussions resulted in the creation of a Digital Opportunities Taskforce (DOT force) that aimed at bridging the digital divide between rich and poor countries. The 2001 Genoa Summit was marred by violent demonstrations, a heavy-handed police crackdown and the death of one Italian protester. As regards summit discussions, Africa continued to occupy the summiteers’ minds and the Italian hosts continued the process of outreach by hosting a dinner for African leaders and the heads of international institutions. A “Marshall Plan for Africa” (in Blair’s words) was announced to relieve poverty, address the threat of AIDS, and promote democracy. The emphasis at Genoa on Africa, ICT, AIDS, and other infectious diseases was consistent with previous discussions at Okinawa. The 2002 Kananaskis Summit concluded this fourth round of summitry and was the first summit to be held after the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. In response, the leaders retreated to the mountains of Alberta, Canada and unsurprisingly antiterrorism measures and the threat of WMD were high on the agenda. Russia was formally integrated into the G8 and accorded the right to host the 2006 summit (Germany kindly making way in the hosting order). Africa continued to remain on the agenda as it had done throughout this cycle and an Africa Action Plan was announced. Bayne’s assessment of this summit cycle highlights debt and development (1996), Russian participation (1997), the creation of the G8 and crime (1998), debt, Kosovo and finance (1999), outreach and IT (2000), infectious diseases and Africa (2001), and Africa and the disposal of WMD (2002).20 This cycle demonstrates both internal reform through the integration of Russia and outreach to non-G8 members but also the roots of the current concern with Africa and a significant shift into new areas.
The Fifth Cycle of Summitry, 2003– The first three summits in the fifth cycle of summitry – Evian in 2003, Sea Island in 2004, and Gleneagles in 2005 – saw a continuation of the remarkable consistency in personnel that began at the 2001 Genoa Summit, with Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin being the only newcomer to the summit table during this period (see Box 2.2). Topics for discussion also demonstrated a degree of consistency by centring upon African aid and debt relief, terrorism, and environmental issues. The 2003 Evian Summit began this new cycle of a genuine G8 with Russia fully integrated. However, it also continued the process of
History and Development 15 outreach to non-G8 members and included China as part of a dialogue meeting for the first time. Media attention was placed on the divisions that had emerged between Continental Europe and the Anglo-American allies over the War in Iraq of earlier that same year. Although water was cited as a top priority in the run-up to the summit, there was little in terms of outcomes. The summit provided more of an opportunity for bridge-building than discord. The Bush administration’s ambivalence towards multilateralism was a cause for concern in the run-up to the 2004 Sea Island Summit. Although little effort was made to bring civil society groups into the summit process, Bush used the G8 to continue the process of outreach and take the initiative in placing the Middle East and the promotion of democracy and economic reform on the agenda. Expectations that a deal on African debt relief could be reached were never higher than during the run-up to the 2005 Gleneagles Summit, although, as is clear from the above, this was an issue that the G8 and Blair in particular had been contending with since the previous round of summitry. The result was an agreement amongst the leaders to cancel the debts of the poorest countries and provide US $50 billion of extra aid by 2010. The summit (and the pressure that had been exerted on the G8 by the Make Poverty History campaign) was overshadowed by a series of terrorist attacks on London on the second day of the summit. However, if the goal was to disrupt the summit then these suicide bombings failed as the leaders declared their unity and for the first time the G8 leaders backed up their summit pledges by physically and publicly putting their signature to them. One interesting feature of this cycle, which will be discussed in Chapter 2 in more detail, is the factoring of Russia into the summit cycle so that it hosted its first summit in St Petersburg in July 2006. Speculation was rife in the run-up to the summit as to which issues Russia, as host, would place on the agenda. However, in the end, the three issues of energy, infectious diseases, and education were identified as the core issues. Energy made sense considering Russia’s national interests and the increase in energy prices in the first half of 2006. Infectious diseases were of concern as a result of the spread of avian influenza and found a precedence in their discussion at the 2000 Okinawa Summit. Education was something of a surprise but harked back to the 2002 Kananaskis Summit. However, the discussion of terrorism appeared to be unavoidable in light not only of previous summits and contemporary concerns but, also, Russia’s own domestic insurgencies. What is more, the pressure built up in the run-up to the 2005 Gleneagles Summit for the G8 to resolve Africa’s problems was
16
History and Development
unlikely to go away and has consistently appeared on the G8 agenda during this and the previous cycle.21 Although not addressed explicitly at St Petersburg, it is likely that the Germans will return to this issue at the 2007 summit. Sir Nicholas Bayne highlights the achievements during this cycle as being outreach and reconciliation (2003), the Middle East (2004), and then Africa, engagement with civil society and non-G8 members, and climate change (2005).22 Although this review of the G8’s history has been, by necessity, brief, some clear successes and miserable failures are evident. One way of summarizing this history and making immediate sense of its patchy record is through the grades that have been awarded to each summit since by Bayne (see Box 1.2). Although hardly scientific, these grades are decided on the basis of the agreements reached at each summit that foster cooperation and concrete post-summit policy changes in specific issue-areas. No judgement is made on the success or failure, rights or wrongs of the policy; rather, the fact that international coordination of varying degrees was fostered is the deciding factor. The grades also represent the evaluation of one of the longest-serving and bestinformed of summit-watchers. In addition, this chapter has demonstrated a number of themes that define the G8: an original emphasis on resolving specific macro-
Box 1.2 Success and Failure of Summits, 1975–2005 France
US
UK
Germany
Japan
Italy
Canada
Cycle 1, 1975–81
A-
D
B-
A
B+
C+
C
Cycle 2, 1982–88
C
B
C-
E
B+
D
C-
Cycle 3, 1989–95
B+
D
B-
D
C+
C
B+
Cycle 4, 1996–2002
B
C-
B+
B+
B
B
B+
Cycle 5, 2003–5
C+
C+
Source: Bayne 2005: 18; 214.
History and Development 17 economic issues that was soon complemented by the discussion of a wide range of other issues; the goal of creating an informal grouping of leaders that was most evident and successful during the first, fourth, and fifth cycles; a forum for initial discussion that then creates or delegates to other institutions more suited for policy implementation; the importance of its communiqués, statements, and declarations as the mouthpiece of the summit. These themes, and others, will be taken up in more detail in the chapters that follow.
2
Organization and Functioning
This chapter will introduce the key players in the summit process – prime ministers/presidents, a range of ministers (foreign, finance, trade, education, and so on), and the key role of each individual leader’s assistant, the sherpa, supported by sous-sherpas, and political directors – before then proceeding to outline the calendar of annual summit preparations, the evolution of their agenda, and post-summit follow-ups. Thereafter, the gamut of summit documentation (communiqué, chairman’s statement and summary, ministerial documentation, and special statements) will be explored as the primary sources of information on the G7/8 and its chief mouthpiece. In addition, the promises included therein and the level of compliance amongst G7/8 members will be highlighted. Finally, the G7/8’s interaction with and relationship to other mechanisms of global governance – the UN, the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, and regional organizations such as the EU – will be established. In light of the potted history of the summit in the previous chapter, this chapter underscores the point made in the Introduction that the G7/8 is neither an international organization nor a formal institution. Thus, it differs considerably from the other mechanisms of global governance covered in this series and can be more easily understood as a Concert. In particular, a modern-day application of the centuries-old idea explored in the previous chapter: the Concert of Europe.
Summit Participants The most important and high-profile participants in the summit process are obviously the leaders of the G8 countries. The original idea behind the summit was to bring together the individual leaders without their associated bureaucracies to meet in an informal atmosphere so that a consensus of like-minded politicians could emerge. However, this ideal of a “fireside chat” was never likely to materialize and from
Organization and Functioning 19 the very first summit the leaders came accompanied by their foreign and finance ministers until the practice was discontinued at the 1998 Birmingham Summit. If the goal of the summit was to create a sense of intimacy amongst the leaders of the leading economies, then a certain degree of consistency in attendance at the summit would appear to be a necessity. During the period 1975 to 2005, as is demonstrated in Box 2.1, the leading summit participant was Helmut Kohl, who attended sixteen consecutive summits from the 1983 Williamsburg to the 1998 Birmingham Summit. French President François Mitterrand and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher also represent long-time summit participants (and in the case of Thatcher, she is one of only two women to participate in the summit meetings of G8 leaders during this period). Obviously the length of attendance at the summit is a reflection of the political system of the country in question. At the opposite end of the spectrum lie Italy and Japan. Italy’s most consistent participant has been Silvio Berlusconi (six summits) and Japan’s has been Nakasone Yasuhiro and Koizumi Junichiro¯ (both five summits). Italian and Japanese participation demonstrate respectively the high degree of change and flux in the political system (thirteen Italian prime ministers have attended since 1975) and the relative unimportance of the position of prime minister (fourteen Japanese prime ministers have been in attendance). Somewhere in the middle are US presidents, who attend either four summits (Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush), or eight summits (Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and most likely George W. Bush) unless they are impeached, assassinated or retire. However, it is not just length of service that is important. Consistency in attendance needs to exist across the participating countries in order to create the esprit de corps at the heart of the G8. Box 2.2 demonstrates the two periods during which the same group of faces attended the summit on a regular basis: 1) the mid-1980s when Mitterrand, Reagan, Thatcher, Kohl, and Nakasone were all in power; and 2) more recently since 2001 when Chirac, Bush, Blair, Schröder, Koizumi, and Berlusconi have been in power. The latter period ought to be regarded as something of a renaissance in the relevance and success of the summit. Interestingly, however, the former period is often regarded as one of atrophy in the summit process, leading one to wonder whether the goal of fostering intimacy amongst the G8 leaders translates into successful summit outcomes. It has been known on a number of occasions for the G8 leaders to use their position as chair and host of the G8 to enhance their domestic position, often with one eye on an upcoming election. As
Box 2.1 Summit Attendance, 1975–2005 Leader
Times attended as elected head of government
Times attended in other ministerial position
Total
Helmut Kohl (Germany)
16
0
16
François Mitterrand (France)
14
0
14
Margaret Thatcher (UK)
12
0
12
Jacques Chirac (France)
11
2
13
Jean Chrétien (Canada)
10
1
11
Tony Blair (UK)
9
0
9
Bill Clinton (U.S.)
8
0
8
Brian Mulroney (Canada)
8
0
8
Ronald Reagan (U.S.)
8
0
8
Helmut Schmidt (Germany)
8
0
8
Pierre Trudeau (Canada)
8
0
8
Gerhard Schröder (Germany)
7
0
7
John Major (UK)
6
1
7
Silvio Berlusconi (Italy)*
6
1
7
Vladimir Putin (Russia)**
6
0
6
Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (France)
6
0
6
Giulio Andreotti (Italy)
5
6
11
George W. Bush (U.S.)
5
0
5
Koizumi Junichirô (Japan)
5
0
5
Nakasone Yasuhiro (Japan)
5
0
5
George H. W. Bush (U.S.)
4
0
4 (continued on next page)
Leader
Times attended as elected head of government
Times attended in other ministerial position
Total
Jimmy Carter (U.S.)
4
0
4
Hashimoto Ryûtarô (Japan)
3
4
7
James Callaghan (UK)
3
1
4
Bettino Craxi (Italy)
3
0
3
Romano Prodi (Italy)
3
0
3
Boris Yeltsin (Russia)**
3
0
3
Miyazawa Kiichi (Japan)
2
6
8
Giuliano Amato (Italy)
2
2
4
Amintore Fanfani (Italy)
2
0
2
Gerald Ford (U.S.)
2
0
2
Fukuda Takeo (Japan)
2
0
2
Kaifu Toshiki (Japan)
2
0
2
Ciriaco de Mita (Italy)
2
0
2
Miki Takeo (Japan)
2
0
2
Aldo Moro (Italy)
2
0
2
Murayama Tomiichi (Japan) Giovanni Spadolini (Italy)
2
0
2
2
0
2
Suzuki Zenkô (Japan)
2
0
2
Paul Martin (Canada)
2
0
2
Joe Clark (Canada)
1
6
7
Lamberto Dini (Italy)
1
6
7
Takeshita Noboru (Japan)
1
5
6
Carlo Azeglio Ciampi (Italy) Obuchi Keizô (Japan)
1
4
5
1
2
3
Ôhira Masayoshi (Japan)
1
2
3
Mori Yoshirô (Japan)
1
1
2
(continued on next page)
22
Organization and Functioning Leader
Times attended as elected head of government
Times attended in other ministerial position
Total
Mori Yoshirô (Japan)
1
1
2
Uno Sôsuke (Japan)
1
1
2
Massimo d’Alema (Italy)
1
0
1
Kim Campbell (Canada)
1
0
1
Francesco Cossiga (Italy)
1
0
1
Harold Wilson (UK)
1
0
1
*
Silvio Berlusconi attended the 2002 Kananaskis Summit as both Prime
**
Minister and Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs Russia participation began officially from the 1997 Denver Summit of the Eight
mentioned in the previous chapter, this was one reason that US President Gerald Ford called for a second summit in 1976 at San Juan although it resulted in very little. The effect of using the summit in this way has been referred to as “the tailwind provided by the summit.”1 Equally, the leader might be forced to respond to an influential domestic pressure group. For example, both George W. Bush and Jacques Chirac have responded to farming interests in their own countries and thereby stalled agreements on international trade and protectionism. Blair and Schröder were sensitive to the Jubilee 2000 campaign for African debt relief in the run-up to their respective hosting of the 1998 Birmingham and 1999 Cologne summits. Although the G8 leaders are the most readily identifiable of summit participants, the summit process has deepened to embrace regular meetings at the ministerial level. The leaders were accompanied by their foreign and finance ministers at the first summit in 1975 and regularly thereafter until 1998. It was still only relatively recently that this aspect of participation was addressed by Tony Blair’s reforms introduced from the 1998 Birmingham Summit onwards. With the goal of returning the main summit meeting of leaders to the idealized intimacy and informality of a fireside chat, Blair separated these ministerial meetings both geographically and temporally from the leaders’ meeting. As a result, since 1998, foreign
Box 2.2 Overlap in Attendance 1975–2005
Box 2.2 Continued
Organization and Functioning 25 and finance ministers have met a few weeks in advance of the leaders’ meeting. Beyond the key foreign and finance ministries, the G8’s work has expanded across other ministerial remits: education, employment, energy, environment, justice, labour, and trade, to mention but a few. The most high-profile of these meetings is probably that of the G7 finance ministers who meet without Russia three to four times a year.2 As mentioned above, the foreign ministers meet annually before the leaders’ meeting but can also meet on an ad hoc basis when necessary. Since its creation at the 1981 Ottawa Summit, the Quad meeting of the USTR, EU Trade Commissioner, and Canadian and Japanese trade ministers has met three to four times a year. Environment ministers have met on an annual basis since 1994, employment ministers since 1996, and energy, health and labour ministers meet on an irregular basis. In addition, a series of ad hoc meetings have taken place as is required. For example, the G7 foreign and finance ministers met in Tokyo in April 1993 to decide an aid package to Russia. A G8 education ministers’ meeting took place in Okinawa in April 2000 and a meeting of drug experts took place in Miyazaki, Japan in December 2000. One key development in the summit process was the emergence of the position of a personal assistant to each leader, who is called the “sherpa” after the Nepalese mountain guide that leads mountaineers to the top of a summit. In order to guide their leaders to the summit meeting, the sherpas meet on a regular basis during the year in order to establish the agenda of the upcoming summit, the wording of statements and communiqués, and on occasion have met after the summit to oversee the implementation of pledges. Usually the sherpa is a top bureaucrat from the foreign ministry of each respective country and will serve for more than one summit. However, this is not an established rule. US sherpas have come from the White House staff and German sherpas have come from the finance ministry. She (there have only ever been five female sherpas) is assisted by two sous-sherpa, usually representing the finance and foreign ministries. These are the main actors in the actual summit negotiations. However, a number of other actors are also involved with and shape our understanding of the summit. Recently, as part of the policy of outreach, non-G8 members have been invited to the summit table. In addition, protest and civil society groups have targeted the summit since its very beginning and over recent years have been included in the policy of outreach. Both of these groups will be discussed in more detail in the following chapters. The world’s media are an important conduit through which the summit is understood by the peoples of the world and the
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Organization and Functioning
press media in its broadsheet form have often carried each summit’s communiqué on its pages. Originally only a few hundred media representatives attended the 1975 Rambouillet Summit but preparations were made to welcome 4,000 journalists to Okinawa in 2000. Thus, the media centre has come to be an important facility at the summit that provides a base of operations not only for journalists but also a point of reference for civil society groups. These media centres have at times been kept at arm’s length from the summit proceedings, as at the 2002 Kananaskis Summit, or have been included within the summit venue’s perimeters, as at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit. Finally, the leaders’ wives (and sometimes even their children) have often accompanied their husbands to the summit and have come together to conduct a number of social and political activities from performing the Japanese tea ceremony to conducting a day-and-a-half political round table at the 2004 Sea Island Summit.
Preparing the Summit Preparations for the summit begin some time in advance at both the international, regional, national, and local levels. The key role in the official preparations is played by the sherpa of the host country and his counterparts, who meet at regular intervals in the run-up to the summit. The summit schedule is very much a result of these preparations and the individual host’s wishes; a typical running order can be seen in Box 2.3. This was the predicted schedule before the opening of the 2005 Gleneagles Summit and, although disrupted by terrorist attacks on 7 July 2005, proceeded by and large as planned. It is evident that with many summits’ schedules, there is a certain amount of ceremony and a number of functions are involved, but at the same time it represents quite an intensive period of time for the leaders to be in the same room as each other. The degree of bunking down together and informal interaction is such that it has been noted that Blair bumped into Bush at 6:30 a.m. in the gym at the 2002 Kananaskis Summit.3 There has also been some fluctuation in the length of the summit. Summits in the first cycle tended to last two days but thereafter have generally spanned three days. However, an attempt was made to pare down the proceedings to a two-day summit at Kananaskis. Preparing for the summit is not limited to the remit of discussion and the possible pledges. A degree of festivity can also accompany the summit, as seen in the brewing of beers specific to each G8 leader by a local pub before the 1998 Birmingham Summit or the concerts that took place in the run-up to the 2000 Okinawa Summit and 2005 Gleneagles Summit. In addition, education campaigns are often
Box 2.3 Summit Working Schedule – Gleneagles Summit, 6–8 July 2005 Wednesday, 6 July 2005 11:00 onwards 19:00 19:30 19:40 19:55 20:00 22:00
G8 leaders arrive at Gleneagles Hotel Pre-dinner drinks at Gleneagles Hotel The Queen and Prince Philip arrive The Queen and Prince Philip greet G8 leaders and spouses Group photograph Dinner for G8 leaders and spouses hosted by The Queen The Queen and Prince Philip depart Gleneagles
Thursday, 7 July 2005 08:20 onwards
09:40
09:55 10:00-11:30 12:10
12:15–13:15
13:20
Leaders from Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa, and heads of the International Energy Agency, International Monetary Fund, United Nations, World Bank, and World Trade Organization arrive at Gleneagles Hotel Prime Minister greets G8 leaders individually and formally welcomes them to G8 Summit at the Glendevon Terrace Pre-meeting of G8 leaders in the Glendevon Room First working session on global economy (including trade and oil) and climate change Pre-meeting with G8 leaders of leaders from Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa, and heads of the IEA, IMF, UN, World Bank, and WTO at the Strathbearn Restaurant Meeting of G8 leaders with leaders from Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa and heads of the IEA, IMF, UN, World Bank, and WTO, opened by presentations by invited guests Group photograph with the G8 leaders, leaders from Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South (continued on next page)
13:30–15:00
16:15 onwards
16:50 17:00-18:00 20:15–22:00
Africa, and heads of the IEA, IMF, UN, World Bank, and WTO, at the Glendevon Terrace Working lunch with the G8 leaders, leaders from Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa, and heads of the IEA, IMF, UN, World Bank, and WTO, opened by presentations by invited guests Departures of leaders from Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa, and heads of the IEA, IMF, UN, World Bank, and WTO from Gleneagles Hotel Group photograph of G8 leaders at Glendevon Terrace Second working session on regional issues (Middle East) and broader Middle East and North Africa Working dinner on regional issues, counter-proliferation, nuclear issues, foreign policy issues
Friday, 8 July 2005 08:35 onwards
10:00-11:15 11:25
11:30-12:45
12:50
Leaders from Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania and heads of the African Union Commission, IMF, UN, and the World Bank arrive at the Gleneagles Hotel Third working session on Africa Pre-meeting with G8 leaders of leaders from Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania, and heads of the African Union Commission, IMF, UN, and the World Bank at the Strathearn Restaurant Meeting with G8 leaders, leaders from Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania, and heads of the African Union Commission, IMF, UN, and the World Bank, opened by presentations by invited guests Group photograph of G8 leaders, leaders from Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania, and heads of the African Union Commission, IMF, UN, and the World Bank and Glendevon Terrace (continued on next page)
Organization and Functioning 29 13:00-15:00
15:15 15:45 16:00
Working lunch with G8 leaders, leaders from Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania, and heads of the African Union Commission, IMF, UN, and the World Bank Prime Minister Tony Blair holds final G8 press conference G8 leaders hold individual press conferences G8 leaders, leaders from Algeria, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania, and heads of the African Union Commission, IMF, UN, and the World Bank depart the Gleneagles Hotel
Based on http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/2005gleneagles/agenda.html
conducted to inform locals, non-locals, and visitors of the history and purpose of the summit. In addition, both the choice of venue and the schedule of the summit are important considerations. As regards the summit venue, G7/8 meetings are often held in (quite literally) palatial surroundings, such as the châteaux of Rambouillet and Versailles in France, the Geihinkan (modelled on the palace of Versailles) in Tokyo and the Ducal Palace in Genoa. However, other buildings have acted as venues, such as the prime minister’s residence in Downing Street, London, UK, the largest log cabin in the world in Montebello, Canada, and Rice University in Houston in the US. Hotels have often been utilized as venues, including both pre-existing hotels, such as the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland, and hotels and conference facilities purpose-built at great expense for the summit, such as the Bankoku Shinryo ¯ kan in Okinawa, Japan. The choice of summit venue is not as peripheral to the summit’s proceedings as it may seem at first glance. Considering the original goal of the summit was to create an atmosphere conducive to discussion and intimacy, a comfortable venue is a necessity. In this light, even the food served at the summit and the ceremonial functions attended by the leaders’ wives can also be regarded as playing an important diplomatic role in contributing to the success or failure of the summit. From the host government’s point of view, the summit can be a source of national pride and an indication of a country’s contribution and commitment to international society. For example, Japanese prime ministers campaigned from the very first summit onwards to
30 Organization and Functioning secure the right to host the summit. The 1989 Paris Summit coincided with the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. From the point of view of the local communities, hosting the summit has often been regarded as a potential fillip to the local economy. On the one hand, cities have petitioned their governments for the chance to host the summit and have utilized the media to raise their profile both nationally and internationally. On the other hand, politicians have presented the honour of hosting the summit to the cities in question as a present of sorts. For example, before he was forced to resign (for the first time), UK Home Secretary David Blunkett selected his home town of Sheffield to host the G8 Home and Justice Ministers’ meeting and the announcement was welcomed by the local council as a money-spinning and profile-raising opportunity. The trend in recent years of hosting the summit outside of the capital city has only contributed to this. It is believed that the 1995 Halifax Summit promoted a positive image of the city and region and led to an influx of tourists and new residents. The 2000 Okinawa Summit was used by the locals to both promote Okinawa as a holiday destination and highlight the disproportionate concentration of US military bases on the islands. However, hosting the summit has also been regarded as a source of annoyance and dislocation as a result of disruption to economic activity, road closures, and violent protests. No record of the cost of the summit is kept beyond newspaper reporting of the time, but it can vary wildly. The most expensive summit was the 2000 Okinawa Summit at US $750 million, roughly 100 times more expensive than the preceding 1999 Cologne Summit. This provoked vociferous criticism of a process whose concrete results are often difficult to discern but whose extravagance is all too evident. The 2001 Genoa Summit was thought to cost US $225 million in total and the 2002 Kananaskis Summit cost US $200 million to host with security being the major costing.4 In recent years, as a result of the threat of terrorism, the cost of policing the summit has increased considerably, to the point where this is now the main budgetary concern. Security has always been a concern in preparing for the summit and from its earliest meetings the summit presented itself as a target for all manner of protests. The opening day of the 1976 San Juan Summit was targeted by 15,000 protesters calling for the independence of Puerto Rico from the US and the 1979 Tokyo Summit suffered from a certain amount of disruption as a result of Japanese Communist and Anarchist groups.5 In recent years, the demonstrations of anti-globalization protesters of all shades at the meetings of a range of institutions of global governance have become ubiquitous. The disrup-
Organization and Functioning 31 tion caused to the meeting of the WTO in Seattle in 1999 remains the most resonant example of recent protest; however, the riots at the 2001 Genoa Summit and the heavy-handed police response resulting in the death of Italian protester Carlo Giuliani remained as the lasting impression in the popular imagination of this summit. Thus, how to handle the inevitable accompanying protest – both peaceful and violent – has become an important consideration in the selection of a summit venue. Connected with this, since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 on New York and Washington, it could be said that the G8 is now the biggest terrorist target in the world today. It may seem Cassandra-like to warn of a single bomb killing eight of the world’s most important leaders but it was rumoured that al-Qaeda plotted to fly a hijacked plane into the Ducal Palace in Genoa. Moreover, the London bombings of 7 July 2005 were thought to be timed to coincide with the 2005 Gleneagles Summit. Thus, with one eye in the post-9/11 terrorist threat and one eye on creating a space for, but containing, legitimate protest, security has become a top priority in preparing for the summit. The initial reaction was to move the summit venue to a remote and inaccessible venue – the 2002 Kananaskis Summit was held in the mountains of Alberta, Canada; the 2004 Sea Island Summit was held on an island resort off the coast of Georgia, US; and the 2005 Gleneagles Summit was held in a hotel surrounded by a specially constructed security fence. This trend of hosting summits away from the capital and in inaccessible locales is likely to continue in the future but does raise crucial questions as regards the transparency and legitimacy of the summit process, in addition to conflicting with the constitutional and legal aspects of the host country. The Canadian constitution, for example, includes the right not only to protest but also to have one’s protest heard. If demonstrations are contained to nearby conurbations it is unlikely that this right can be fulfilled.
Summit Documentation and Post-Summit Compliance The G8 deliberately has no formal decision-making mechanism or ability to enforce decisions reached; in fact, US proposals to include these functions were deliberately vetoed prior to the first summit.6 Rather, the G8 can encourage or exhort through its public declarations. However, even this practice has not been supported unanimously and the release of the first joint declaration at the 1975 Rambouillet Summit was initially opposed by France and the UK but supported by Germany, Japan, and the US.
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Organization and Functioning
There is a wide range of summit documentation including the centrepiece of the final communiqué (previously also known as the economic declaration) released at the end of each summit and covering all aspects of the summit’s discussions. The length of the communiqué has varied over the years. The 1975 Rambouillet communiqué consisted of fifteen articles and just over 1,000 words. By the time of the 1990 Houston Summit the length of the communiqué had increased seven-fold. The Chair’s summary at the 2004 Sea Island Summit was of similar length but was supported by a host of supporting statements and action plans released on an almost daily basis. The communiqué is partly the product of the sherpas’ regular meetings during the year but also incorporates eleventh-hour decisions and last-minute changes in phrasing. This can be seen in the fact that the 1995 Halifax Summit’s communiqué was leaked to the press before its official release but differed from the document that was eventually issued. Below the communiqué, a political declaration, action plan/s and/or chairman’s statement are often issued to address a specific issue like hijacking, regional conflicts, and East–West relations. Other documents include responses by the presidency on behalf of the G8, such as Tony Blair’s response to the Jubilee 2000 campaign at the 1998 Birmingham Summit. Finally, transcripts of the press conferences conducted after the summit by each leader are also released. The language used in summit documentation depends on the host country. It has been suggested that the Canadians, French, and Germans prefer simple, accessible, and shorter communiqués.7 However, as mentioned in the Preface, the language of summit documentation can be uninspiring and vague at times. This may reflect the inconclusive nature of the summit discussions. Nevertheless, summit declarations matter in that [l]ong after the leaders have flown home, their diplomats in dialogue with difficult foreigners, officials engaged in bureaucratic battles with recalcitrant colleagues in other departments, and leaders tempted to backslide in the parochial heat of the political moment, wave these summit documents at their adversaries, have them waved back at them in turn, and see the provisions of those documents having real, continuing political force. Cheat they can and do, but in the cozy world of summitry, they are inhibited from becoming repeat offenders by the knowledge that they are likely to have their transgressions noticed, and by the certainty that they will have to confront, face to face, their powerful peers in less than one year’s time.8
Organization and Functioning 33 In more popularist terms, this inhibition from offending repeatedly was captured at the Live 8 concert in London before the 2005 Gleneagles Summit, when the pop star Sting sang “I’ll be watching you” as faces of the eight leaders were projected onto a backdrop. Summit statements also provide guidance to the other multilateral mechanisms that provide global governance: Summit decisions are thus able to bite deeply, and effectively, into the intractable reaches of domestic politics and international institution-building, some of which have long remained immune to the ordinary diplomatic processes of the post-Westphalian world. They can and do impose discipline on the domestic economies of those powerful countries beyond the effective reach of the old international institutions formally charged with this purpose. And they define the parameters, priorities, principles and work programs for the international institutions of the previous two generations. In short, these texts are not just pious expressions of passing politeness from preoccupied politicians but documents that matter in the real world of politics and economics at the national, international and global level alike.9 In other words, they demonstrate that the leaders of the world’s leading economies have reached an agreement that can range from a “soft consensus” to a “fully, negotiated binding settlement.”10 In enforcing this range of pledges of promises, the G8 can implore, encourage, delegate or berate fellow members, non-G8 members, international organizations, and so on, to change their behaviour and comply but it does not have any legal basis to do so. Herein lies the only mechanism by which compliance with summit pledges can be ensured moral weight. In this context, it would appear intuitive to equate compliance to the pledges included in summit declarations with a commitment to the goals and successful functioning of the summit process. To this end, detailed research has highlighted various aspects of compliance with the pledges made at the G7/8 summits. This research is ongoing and has been conducted on the basis of individual G8 members’ behaviour in line with what has been promised after individual summits, over extended periods of time, and on specific issues. In terms of G8 members’ commitment to the promises they have made at their summit meetings, the results demonstrate something of a mixed bag at best.11 During the period 1975 to 1989, the UK was the most compliant member insofar as it fulfilled the pledges it made at the summits during this period 41.3 per cent of the time. The UK was followed by
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Organization and Functioning
Canada (40.9 per cent), and Germany (34.6 per cent). Only these three members were above the average compliance rate of 30.7 per cent. From 1996 to 2001, the UK remained the most compliant G8 participant with its average rate of compliance rated at 63 per cent. Canada remained second (53 per cent), Italy and the US tied for third (51 per cent), and Japan came in fourth (48 per cent), the only other summit member above the average compliance rate of 45 per cent.12 What this demonstrates is that certain members (the UK and Canada) have reputations as participants who stick to their G8 pledges. Other members (France) might regard their role of handmaiden of the summit proudly but fail to translate this into the implementation of promises. Other participants (Japan and the US) demonstrate a more inconsistent and evolving relationship with the G7/8 summit process. One of UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s interesting innovations has been the physical signing of the communiqué by the G8 leaders and his accompanying declaration that they were “held by this, bound by this.”13 Whether or not this practice is effective in fostering compliance and a sense of obligation remains to be seen.
Post-Summit Developments and the G8’s Position in Global Governance In the words of Bayne, “the best future approach for the summits is that of catalyst, providing impulses to wider international institutions but not trying to do their work for them, either from inside or outside.”14 Thus, the way in which the G8 functions in the provision of global governance can only be truly understood in relation to other organizations, institutions, and mechanisms. As mentioned above, the summit’s communiqué and related documents are its only mouthpiece and have been used as a clarion call to coordinate these institutions. For example, the final summit communiqués have repeatedly highlighted the work of the UN and in turn have called for the streamlining of its functions and the reform of its institutions, the evolution of a concerted anti-terrorist policy, and the development of preventive diplomacy and its peacekeeping operations. In addition to this “gentle prodding,” the G7/8 has replaced the UN at times as the international community’s institution of choice. It was the G7, not the UN, which played a central role in coordinating Germany and Japan’s financial support of the Gulf War of 1990–91, in addition to ending the Kosovo conflict of 1999. It has also been argued that the G8 is more representative of the contemporary great powers than the UN Security Council (UNSC) due to the inclusion of Germany and
Organization and Functioning 35 Japan. Especially during the US-led war on Iraq of March 2003, which was instigated with little regard for the UN, it was suggested by some that real influence and authority was, or in the future will be, transferred to the G7/8.15 However, rather than constituting a zero-sum game, the G7/8 and the UN can be seen to complement each other – the G8 is, after all, an opportunity for national leaders to meet informally and discuss chiefly economic issues; whereas the UNSC is a highly formalized meeting of ambassadors concerned chiefly with security issues. In this light, it would make more sense for the two groupings to engage in closer dialogue. Equally, the G8 has sought to promote in its annual communiqués and declarations both the work of, and coordination amongst, international institutions and organizations both horizontally and vertically. At the first summit in 1975, UK Prime Minister Harold Wilson claimed that a glut of international bodies were concerned with the same issues that were discussed in the summit process and that the system needed to be streamlined – an initiative that was not taken up immediately thereafter. However, at the 1994 Naples Summit, the member states came to agree upon the need for a review of these institutions. This call was more effective in setting the ball rolling and at Halifax the following year the summit agenda focussed on international financial issues and recommended a number of reforms in the functioning of the IMF, especially as regards its early-warning mechanisms, and the World Bank, especially as regards the most effective use of its resources. However, the objective of the G7/8 member states has not been to pursue radical reform of these mechanisms of global governance, but rather “to protect the existing system and make it work better.”16 To this end, the G7/8 has supported the work of GATT and the WTO by regularly emphasizing the rapid conclusion of trade negotiations in its communiqués and in its creation of the Trade Ministers’ Quadrilateral (more commonly known as the “Quad”) at the 1981 Ottawa Summit to meet three to four times a year. These initiatives have been credited with some success, particularly in exerting pressure on the conclusion of the Uruguay Round. In addition, formal and informal techniques have been used to link the G7/8 with the OECD, the most salient example being the practice from 1976 of holding the OECD Council just prior to the annual summit meeting. Regional organizations, such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and the Organization of American States, have also taken up the guidance and political will displayed by the G8 in combating issues such as terrorism. Other participants brought into the summit process have included business groups such as the International Chamber of
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Organization and Functioning
Commerce, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee, and the Trade Union Advisory Committee of the OECD. The participation not only of state actors but also non-G8 and non-state actors is part of a policy of “outreach” that will be discussed in following chapters. Within the framework of the G8, institutional depth is also evident as the number of “Gs” has increased. The creation of the Quad has been mentioned above. In addition, the foreign ministers of the summit members met at the annual summit from 1975 to 1998 and usually meet before the opening of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in September each year. G7 finance ministers have had the opportunity to meet regularly: 1) at the annual summit from 1975 to 1998 before their meetings were separated from the leaders’ meeting; 2) at their own meetings which have been held three or four times a year since 1986, and, on occasion, have included the managing director of the IMF; and 3) at IMF, World Bank, and World Economic Forum (WEF) meetings. As mentioned above, ministerial-level meetings on education, employment, energy, the environment, and justice have also taken place. Other groups have been created to address pressing global issues. For example, the G24 was created in 1989 to assist in the transition of former countries of the Warsaw Pact to a democratic and market economy. In addition, the creation of the Group of 20 finance ministers and central bank governors in September 1999 as a permanent grouping including several important developing countries, in order to address financial and monetary reform in cooperation with the IMF and World Bank, was a significant achievement. Finally, over the years a number of working groups and expert groups have been created as necessary to address specific issues. For example, the “Lyon Group” of experts on international crime has its roots in the 1995 Halifax Summit and metamorphosed as a result of the 1996 Lyon Summit. Again, this suggests that the G8 has not eclipsed other international institutions, but rather has created a mutually reinforcing division of labour. Thus, in short, what the G8 does best is offer a blueprint for global governance through its communiqués and declarations in order “to provide political will and direction.”17 Thereafter, it delegates to more traditional international institutions to provide the specialization and implementation. Ultimately, most observers seem to agree that the G8 represents “a recognition of the growing need for coordination of policy and behavior on a number of fronts, reinforced by a conviction that more participatory frameworks, even the UNSC, would be too cumbersome, not sufficiently likeminded, and not as ready to collaborate with global market forces as junior partners.”18
3
Perspectives of Member States
The previous chapters have provided a historical review of the G7/8 summit process and, in an attempt to untangle the “gaggle of Gs,” an explication of how it functions and relates to other fora, institutions, and organizations of global governance. This chapter shifts the focus to the member states that constitute the G7/8, their roles and behaviour, the degree of importance each accords to the summit process, and the domestic impact of summitry in each country. This discussion will follow the revised order of hosting the summit introduced from the 2003 Evian Summit onwards: France as the founding member; the US as both the only superpower to emerge from the Cold War’s end and “doubting Thomas” as regards multilateral projects; the UK with its split personality as member of Europe and supporter of the US; Russia as the “new kid on the block”; Germany as the powerhouse of Europe; Japan as the representative of Asia and bridge between East and West; Italy as the peripheral member; Canada as the “true believer” in multilateralism; and the EU as a full member on paper but permanent observer in practice. The chapter will conclude by exploring the position of possible future members, especially China’s shift from open hostility during the Cold War to more recent engagement with the G8.
France France’s role in the G8 appears to be riddled with contradictions. It is proud of the fact that it is one of the original members of the summit and also one of the core G4 members but is also vehemently independent in pursuing its national interests and, as a result, often ignores G8 pledges. The French government has regarded the summit as functioning most effectively and usefully in its original and simple format but has also added to the carnival and expense of the summit. Equally,
38
Perspectives of Member States
it has sought to maintain the summit agenda’s focus on economics but has not ignored security issues when absolutely unavoidable. The French government is understandably proud of its position as the progenitor of the summit process. In a sense, the summit was a Franco-German creation as President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing sought to create the intimate working relationship he had enjoyed with German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt when the two were both finance ministers of their respective countries. Giscard d’Estaing explained his attitude towards the first summit in the following terms at the time: The capitalist countries seemed absolutely unable to manage their economic and monetary situations . . . but we never have a serious conversation among the great capitalist leaders to say “what do we do now” . . . The question has to be discussed between people having major responsibilities like the United States – a matter of conversation between a very few people and almost on a private level.1 In another sense, a core role in the G7/8 is proof of France’s great power status, despite a post-war decline similar to that of the UK. However, amongst the French people, “summits have not really engendered any major debate in France since their inception. By nature, they are considered the president’s business and belong to this mysterious high-level sphere of power.”2 France is the instigator of each cycle of summitry and to a degree can set the tone for the cycle. With this in mind, it displays a very high level of consistency in attendance over the summit’s thirty-year history. In total, only three French presidents – Giscard d’Estaing (six summits), Mitterrand (fourteen summits), and Chirac (eleven summits) – have attended the summit. What is more, the five summits hosted by the French (Rambouillet 1975, Versailles 1982, Paris 1989, Lyon 1996, and Evian 2003) have been relatively successful. Using the grading system developed by Nicholas Bayne, as introduced in Chapter 1, French-held summits have received the respective grades of A-, C, B+, B, and C+, resulting in an average of around a B+/B (see Box 1.2). However, this facet of France’s participation gives an overly positive impression of France’s participation. As mentioned in Chapter 2, the level of compliance with the decisions and pledges made at the summits could be one indicator of a country’s commitment to the G8 as an effective mechanism of global governance. France’s level of compliance with summit pledges from 1975 to 1998 (24 per cent) is the lowest of the G8 members and suggests a high degree of unilateralism.
Perspectives of Member States 39 More recently, during the period 1996 to 2001, France’s level of compliance has improved (35 per cent) but remains very much towards the lower end with only Russia ranking worse (22 per cent).3 One salient aspect of French participation is that it has tried to prevent the summit from broadening its discussions into areas such as security and social issues and has sought to steer it back towards the economic issues that it was created to address. In French eyes, the summit was originally intended to be a forum for iterative and informal discussion amongst like-minded leaders who share the same values. Formal decisions and actions should be taken through the UN as it possesses the legitimacy that the G8 lacks. This can be seen in the issues that the French government has selected for discussion at summits it has hosted: macroeconomic policy at Rambouillet, monetary policy and exchange rate stability at Versailles, development issues and debt relief at Paris and Lyon. However, France has not shied away from security issues. Its position as a member of the core G4 within the summit process meant that Giscard d’Estaing attended the 1979 Guadeloupe meeting to discuss regional security issues such as missiles in Europe, China, and the Middle East. Alongside Germany, it was eager to have the end of the Cold War and the handling of Russia discussed within the summit. In fact, Gorbachev’s letter to the G7 members was encouraged by the French sherpa, Jacques Attali. In addition, as a result of the shift away from the original emphasis on a simple and informal summit process, the French, like other summit members, have held lavish, high-profile and self-glorifying summits. Like other G8 participants, France’s participation is partly the result of the character of its leader, the President of the Republic, and this shift towards lavishness can be pinned to the influence of Mitterrand in particular: “For François Mitterrand . . . deeply sensitive to shows of grandeur and power, G7 summits certainly are and must be ceremonies.”4 For example, at the 1989 Paris Summit, which coincided with the bicentennial of the French Revolution, references to the 1789 Revolution as the source of freedom, democratic principles, and human rights were included in its declaration on human rights.5 As regards membership, on the one hand, France has regarded its membership of the G7/8 proudly and does not want to see it diluted. It was also originally against the inclusion of Canada in 1976 and the EEC in 1977. However, on the other hand, it has promoted the inclusion of non-G8 members. This is also motivated by a desire to instil a degree of legitimacy within a summit process described by former French Prime Minister Edouard Balladur as “a system that does not involve emerging and developing economies in the decision-making
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process.”6 At the 1989 Paris Summit, an effort was made to arrange meetings between summit and non-summit leaders who had gathered in Paris for the coinciding bicentennial of the 1789 Revolution. The French government has also consistently supported the recent policy of outreach as a means of imbuing the G8 with greater legitimacy. A number of leaders from the developing world – Algeria, Brazil, Egypt, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, and possibly the most significant new participant China – were invited to an extended dialogue meeting at the 2003 Evian Summit. It was Chirac’s intention that this initiative should be institutionalized within the annual summit, although it was limited the following year to select African and Middle Eastern leaders by the US government in its role as host of the 2004 Sea Island Summit.
The US Through the vision of Henry Kissinger, the US can claim a hand in creating the G7. Equally, the early history of the G7/8 is also the history of the decline of US hegemony and the G7 was originally seen as a mechanism to jointly manage global hegemony. However, the US today finds itself in a unique position in the G7/8 as the only truly global superpower. In addition (or rather, as a result) the US is known for its conflicting and ambivalent attitude towards multilateral institutions and the G7/8 is no exception. In the post-9/11 world and with renewed US unilateralism, this traditional ambivalence to multilateralism mechanisms of global governance may well intensify. The five summits hosted by the US have been mixed. The 1976 San Juan Summit is widely regarded as a pointless summit that had more to do with enhancing (unsuccessfully) Ford’s election chances. In contrast, the 1983 Williamsburg Summit was highly successful and served to place security issues and the East–West conflict firmly on the summit’s agenda. The 1990 Houston Summit was important as part of the iterative fashion in which the summiteers handled the collapse of the Soviet Union. The 1997 Denver Summit was important as one of the final stages of Russia’s inclusion within the summit process. The 2004 Sea Island Summit, however, seemed set to undermine much of the good done at previous summits to streamline the summit’s proceedings and its documentation. Respectively, US-hosted summits have been awarded grades of D, B, D, C-, and C+, making one of the worst averages, somewhere between C and C- (see Box 1.2). US participation in the summit closely reflects its political system. Six presidents have participated in the summit: Gerald Ford (twice),
Perspectives of Member States 41 Jimmy Carter (four times), Ronald Reagan (eight times), George H. W. Bush (four times), Bill Clinton (eight times), and George W. Bush (six times, almost certain to rise to eight). Thus, whether elected for a single term or two terms, the US president attends four or eight summits unless something exceptional occurs. The president has selected a sherpa according to his own proclivities. Reagan and George H. W. Bush chose a senior official from the US Department of State, whereas Carter, Clinton and George W. Bush selected a member of the White House staff.7 Similarly, the president in question has stamped his personality on the summit. The exception is Ford, who only attended the first two summits including the non-event that was San Juan. Jimmy Carter was eager to place human rights on the summit agenda. Despite the initial cynicism of the Reagan administration, the summit acquired a more political hue during the bipolar tensions of the early 1980s and became “an important, possibly even essential, forum for the pursuit of American foreign policy goals in the late 1980s.”8 George H. W. Bush was wary about assisting the Soviet Union/Russia but happy for the G8 to be the mechanism through which aid was channelled. Clinton was keen to embrace Russia within the G8 and “[c]ontrary to the image of an ineffective talk shop, . . . [he] tried to take advantage of the group’s unique abilities while addressing its obvious shortcomings.”9 George W. Bush has not wholly rejected the G8 as some observers predicted but has rather sought to shape it in line with the US-led “war on terror.” These positions towards the G8 also demonstrate that the US has not been as reluctant as the French to include the discussion of political and security issues alongside economic ones. The fact that the US is the world’s only superpower which can act unilaterally begs the question of why it would want to work with the G8, and US suspicion of multilateral initiatives can be seen in its low level of compliance with G8 pledges. Between 1975 and 1989, the US had the second worst level of compliance with G8 pledges at 27.4 per cent, only slightly better than last-placed France. As with France, this average improved considerably between 1996 and 2001 to 51 per cent.10 Thus, despite recent enthusiasm under the Clinton administration for the G8, the traditional US position has been one of independence and unilateralism. At the 2005 Gleneagles Summit, this position was borne out when it became clear that the administration of George W. Bush was the main obstacle to striking a more far-reaching deal on global warming and debt relief. In a similar trend that is not conducive to the G8’s future development, many of the reforms implemented since the 1998 Birmingham
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Summit by UK Prime Minister Tony Blair came undone at the 2004 Sea Island Summit. Where Blair had attempted to reduce the length of the communiqué and the number of statements, Bush issued a wide gamut of summit declarations and action plans; where Blair had limited the agenda to specific issues, Bush placed vague and all-encompassing issues on the agenda; where Blair had made a special statement at Birmingham welcoming the participation of civil society and the antidebt Jubilee 2000 campaign, no attempt was made to engage with civil society at Sea Island.11 It would be more accurate to say that civil society was notable by its absence and security guards actually outnumbered demonstrators. However, Bush did not reject or stymie a role for the G8. Rather, he worked with it in a pragmatic fashion to influence the agenda in the direction he wanted, namely a distinct focus on issues beyond the summit’s traditional economic focus, in particular the Middle East. And despite undermining some of the recent reforms introduced by Blair to streamline the summits, Bush continued the process of outreach to non-G8 members by inviting a variety of leaders from African and Middle Eastern countries to meetings on the second and third days of the summit, including Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Ghana, Iraq, Jordan, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Turkey, Uganda, and Yemen. However, these meetings were poorly organized (the nonG8 leaders were only contacted a month before the summit) and not really part of a concerted effort to continue the reform of the G8.12 Possibly, like Ford in 1976, Bush was using the photo-opportunity of the summit in an election year. As regards Russia’s participation within the G8, the US position was one of initial wariness but emerging support for democratic and free-market reforms. However, with the recent authoritarian turn in Russian politics, it is the Bush administration that has attempted to chastise Russia and there has even been talk of removing Russia from the G8 if democratization continues to suffer. In 2005, two US senators proposed a resolution whereby Russia would be suspended from the G8. Whilst taking a slightly less punitive position, a Newsweek feature argued that “President Bush should attempt to prevent Russia from being named the titular leader of the group this July and from hosting the G8 summit in the summer of 2006.”13
The UK The UK is a founding member of the G7/8 and, in similar fashion to France, its governments have regarded it as both symbolic of its position
Perspectives of Member States 43 in the world despite the UK’s relative post-war decline, and a useful forum for international policy coordination. It has been asserted that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office maintains “an entirely pragmatic opinion of the G8.”14 Although true to a large degree, the UK has carved out a role for itself as innovator at the summit with the goal of improving the way in which it functions, as explored below in more detail. It can also boast a solid record of summit performance comparable to other summit members, a tradition of hosting relatively successful summits and one of the highest levels of compliance with G8 pledges. The UK’s position within the G8 is seen to be a central one, as reflected in its invitation to the January 1979 four-power Guadeloupe meeting to discuss security issues. Similarly, on the eve of the 1980 Venice Summit, it became known that France, West Germany, the UK, and US had been conducting secret ambassadorial-level meetings in Washington, which served to create the sense of a two-tier summit process that, like the Guadeloupe meeting, excluded Canada, Italy, and Japan. However, the UK has also found itself torn at times between two personalities: its regional identity as a member of the European project and its “special relationship” with the US that can be useful in addressing divisive issues such as combating climate change. It would appear that the UK is the most committed of all summit members in terms of compliance with G7/8 pledges. From 1975 to 1989, the UK registered the highest rate of compliance at 41.3 per cent. From 1996 to 2001, this level rose to 63 per cent, still ranking the UK as the most compliant summit participant by a considerable gap of 10 per cent between it and Canada on 53 per cent.15 The five UK-hosted summits have also tended to be relatively and consistently successful. The 1977 London Summit was ranked as a B-, the 1984 London Summit was the least successful at a C-, the 1991 London Summit was a B-, and the 1998 Birmingham Summit was the most successful at a B+ (see Box 1.2). The 2005 Gleneagles Summit has yet to be awarded a grade but it was certainly the most high-profile summit in the G8’s thirty-year history and expectations were high that it would contribute positively in the future to environmental issues and Africa’s debt problem. UK prime ministers have tended to play a vocal and active role in summit discussions. On the one hand, this may be a result of the personality of the prime minister of the day. For example, Margaret Thatcher is the longest-serving UK participant in the summit and was a forceful supporter of the US and defender of UK national interests during the 1980s. In addition, Tony Blair is the first UK prime minister to host two summits (1998 Birmingham and 2005 Gleneagles) and has
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been partly responsible for putting debt relief so saliently on the summit agenda.16 On the other hand, a higher degree of stability in representation at the summit may have engendered a more active role for the UK prime minister. Five UK prime ministers have attended the summit in total and this has given the UK a consistency in personnel that is necessary to create the interpersonal relationships that are central to the successful working of a concert mechanism like the G8 summit. Although the UK sherpa has traditionally come from the Treasury, the UK has demonstrated flexibility in the issues to be placed on the summit agenda, whether they be economic, political, or security. The London summits dealt with terrorism and peacekeeping, whilst the Birmingham Summit focussed on Indian nuclear testing alongside traditional economic issues.17 Probably the UK’s most significant contribution to the G8 has been to spur internal reform. There has been a concern with streamlining the summit that can be traced back to the very first summit when Prime Minister Harold Wilson pointed to the fact that numerous international institutions existed concerned with the same issues and that it was necessary to avoid overlap.18 Thereafter, John Major was a keen advocate of simplification of the summit process. In particular at this time: [i]n the British view, the Munich summit in 1992 was singularly unproductive: before President Yeltsin arrived it consisted of one ceremonial meal after another, interspersed by prescripted exchanges of almost stupefying boredom. Munich ducked the GATT question (despite John Major’s efforts) and the finance and foreign ministers had little to do. An example of the ceremonial aspect was that President Bush and the U.S. sherpa had over 40 vehicles to transport them from one location to another.19 Many of his suggested reforms only came to be realized by Tony Blair at the 1998 Birmingham Summit. As mentioned in previous chapters, these reforms included separating the ministerial meetings and establishing leaders-only meetings, downsizing the summit delegations, having a specific and limited agenda, and fewer and shorter statements. Although the US undermined many of these reforms by introducing the amorphous agenda items of freedom, security and prosperity at the 2004 Sea Island Summit, the UK was able to return the summit to the specific discussion of African poverty and global warming at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit.
Perspectives of Member States 45 As regards membership of the G8, the UK played a leading role in incorporating Russia so that the G8 could come into existence at the Birmingham Summit. The UK has also been supportive of expanding the dialogue to include the leaders of non-G8 countries such as Algeria, Brazil, China, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, and Tanzania, who attended the Gleneagles Summit in addition to the heads of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IMF, UN, World Bank, and WTO. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has invited China and India to the G7 finance ministers’ meeting. Blair has been keen to promote the policy of outreach but is less committed on whether this will lead to new full members in an expanded G9 or G10: I think there is certainly a case for trying to involve countries that are self-evidently important as China and India in discussions on these issues. There is a continuing debate about changing the structure of the G8. I think at some point in time it probably should change, but obviously that has got to be done with the agreement of everyone and it is sometimes a bit like the UN Security Council, everyone agrees in principle it should be reformed, but when you come to agreeing which countries and on what basis it gets more difficult. But certainly I think we have already begun the process in the G8 of outreach as it were to other countries and I am sure that will continue.20 The UK has also taken a lead in embracing civil society within the summit process. Blair’s statement as President of the G8 at the Birmingham Summit publicly welcomed “the commitment so many of you have shown today to help the poorest countries in the world. Your presence here is a truly impressive testimony to the solidarity of people in our own countries with those in the world’s poorest and most indebted.”21 By pushing the debt relief agenda at Birmingham and the following year’s summit in Cologne, Blair was responding to e-mail and postcard petitions and also continuing the UK’s traditional concern with this issue, and has also sought to petition the US on the worth of the campaign. Blair has been comfortable meeting with some of the celebrity campaigners like the rock musicians Bob Geldof and Bono and even breakfasted with them before the 2003 Evian Summit. The crescendo of the concern and campaigning surrounding this issue was reached at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit, although the pressure and focus was dissipated by terrorist attacks in London during the summit.
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Russia The Soviet Union’s reaction to the first meeting of the G6 in 1975 was one of open hostility, a stance that continued through to the last years of the Cold War. In the Soviet Union’s eyes, the summit meetings were meaningless and irrelevant at best, unrepresentative and ideological anathema at worst. In particular, it objected to the overt discussion of security issues at the 1983 Williamsburg Summit and the Soviet Union’s news agency TASS warned that “the Soviet Union cannot ignore efforts to turn Japan into Asia’s largest springboard for carrying out all kinds of Reagan’s delirious military concepts.”22 However, with the processes of glastnost and perestroika, the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev began to approach the G7 as the vehicle through which aid in support of his reform programme could be organized. Thus, from the 1989 Paris Summit, how to deal with the unravelling of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the securing of democratic and free market reforms became core themes of summit discussions. As mentioned above, the French sought to invite Gorbachev to the 1989 Paris Summit but it took over a decade for this process to unfold. The Soviet Union/Russia’s steady and incremental participation throughout the 1990s from “guest” at the 1991 London Summit to “participant” at the 1994 Naples Summit built a head of steam so that Boris Yeltsin was invited to attend political discussions at the 1997 Denver Summit (which was not called the “G8,” because of Japanese objections to Russia’s membership, but rather euphemistically the “Summit of the Eight”). The following year at Birmingham, the term “G8” was used for the first time and Yeltsin made a concerted, but ultimately unsuccessful, campaign to wrest the hosting of the 2000 summit from Japan. Russia’s full membership of the G8 was confirmed at the 2002 Kananaskis Summit that completed the fourth cycle of summitry. Thus, it was decided that Russia would host the 2006 summit with Germany ready to delay its turn in order to accommodate Russia into the cycle. There is a precedence for the hosting of the 2006 St Petersburg Summit in the shape of the two-day 1996 Nuclear Safety and Security Summit, which was held in Moscow. However, it is difficult to read the following sentence and not think of the position of the Soviet Union/Russia in the G8: the “formal admission of the Ottoman state to the Concert of Europe in 1856 . . . could be read as a protectorate of sorts rather than as an admission to genuine parity of status.”23 In one respect, the original G7 members regarded the inclusion of Russia partly as a security issue in an attempt to encourage a peaceful transition to free-market economics and
Perspectives of Member States 47 democratic principles. In addition, extending membership of the G8 was seen as a quid pro quo for Russia’s acceptance of the expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. However, it appears that Russia’s prime motivating factor in joining the G8 has been the recognition of great power status that accompanies membership of this elite club, as well as the opportunity to build links with the West. This became particularly evident in 1998 when Yeltsin arrived at Birmingham with the goal of wresting the right to host the 2000 summit away from Japan. The 2006 St Petersburg Summit was, to a degree, a self-glorifying affair as Russia attempted to justify its global status and position within the G8. Russia’s level of compliance with G8 pledges displays a great deal of room for improvement to say the least. From 1996 to 2001, it ranked bottom with 22 per cent.24 Similarly, its diplomatic style at the summits has been surprisingly low-key considering the effort that went into securing its status amongst the elite of the G8. Russia appeared to be learning the ropes of summitry with the goal of occupying the chair of the G8 in 2006 in mind. Equally, the Russians have little to contribute to the discussion of financial issues (it is still excluded from the meetings of the G7 finance ministers) or African aid and debt relief, preferring instead to focus upon political and security issues. Thus, as an issue of immediate foreign policy concern to Russia, the G8 provided the ideal forum in which to discuss conflict resolution in Kosovo. In the post-9/11 security milieu and with its own domestic problems to address, the summit provides Russia with a useful forum in which it can act proactively. As a result, the 2006 summit focussed upon these issues, thereby deflating the intense pressure that had been placed on the G8 in the runup to the 2005 Gleneagles Summit to address African aid and debt issues. It has been argued that, in line with the G7’s original intention that allowing Russia to join a G8 would encourage a peaceful transition to capitalism, considerable progress has been made: “We are consistently turning from a major debtor into an active creditor. We have the highest gross domestic product growth rates among the G8 countries, and our gold and foreign currency reserves, as well as foreign trade turnover are steadily growing.”25 However, as mentioned above, under Putin, Russia has experienced a radical lurch towards authoritarianism and there have been calls, most vocally from within the US, to reconsider Russia’s membership of the G8, which is meant to be a grouping of like-minded countries committed to free-market economics and democracy. As the G8 has no declared criteria for membership and no member of the G8 has ever been disbarred in the past, it is unclear how this diplomatic procedure would be completed.
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Germany Germany, like France and the US, can lay claim to being one of the creators of the summit. It was, after all, German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and the close relationship he forged with Giscard d’Estaing when they were both finance ministers that acted as the model for what the summit of leading powers could be. Traditionally, Germany’s postwar foreign policy has more than favoured a multilateral approach; it has been regarded as a principle of German foreign policy.26 Thus, the G7/8 has provided a useful and comfortable forum for discussion. Whilst Germany was still divided between East and West, it also served as a forum for the pursuit of one of its chief foreign policy goals: reunification. To this end, the 1985 Bonn Summit included a political declaration on the fortieth anniversary of the end of WWII with a specific statement that the summit members “look forward to a state of peace in Europe in which the German people will regain their unity through free self-determination.”27 What is more, and in similar fashion to Japan, membership of the original G7 accorded Germany the recognition of its post-war recovery and great power status, something it was (and still is) denied by the UN. Between 1975 and 2005, apart from Schmidt, only two other German chancellors represented their country at the summit. From 1999 to 2005, Gerhard Schröder attended seven summits. Alongside Blair, he actively promoted the issue of African poverty at the summit, especially the first summit he hosted in Cologne in 1999. However, Germany’s role in the summit and its recent political history has been dominated by the longest-serving summiteer: Helmut Kohl, who attended sixteen consecutive summits. Kohl liked the emphasis that the summit placed on personal dialogue and was eager to engage in collective management of the global economy and to pursue effective compromises on key issues. German participation has also been coloured by the trend towards coalition politics at home and, thus, Germany was keen that supporting ministers accompany the chancellor. German chancellors have traditionally selected their sherpas from the Ministry of Finance. However, Germany’s behaviour at the summit has clashed with its declared elevation of multilateralism to the level of a principle and its level of compliance with G8 pledges has been somewhere between middling and unimpressive. From 1975 to 1989, its level of compliance stood at 34 per cent, placing it fourth amongst the seven behind the UK, Canada, and Italy. During the period from 1996 to 2001, its level of compliance rose to 43 per cent but other members had improved
Perspectives of Member States 49 their record so that Germany now stood at sixth with only France and Russia having worse records.28 As a host, German summits have been erratic to say the least. The first Bonn Summit in 1978 was awarded a grade A for its handling of the issues of oil consumption, trade and aircraft hijacking. However, the second Bonn Summit in 1985 was characterized by open conflict between the summiteers on the issue of the starting-date for the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations and hence was given an E. The 1992 Munich Summit fared slightly better with a D, again stymied by the issue of trade. The 1999 Cologne Summit and its declared commitment to debt relief received a B+. Thus, the average grade for a German-hosted summit is a middling C, although this masks the sudden lurches between success and failure (see Box 1.2). In addition, Kohl added to the expansion of the summit’s agenda and the length of its statements that prompted John Major to call for its downsizing. However, at Cologne in 1999, Schröder continued the reforms introduced by Blair the previous year at Birmingham. Germany is due to host its fifth summit in 2007 and if the “grand coalition” of Socialists and Conservatives that formed the German government in November 2006 is still in power this will be the first time for Germany that a woman, in the shape of Chancellor Angela Merkel, acts as host of the summit. As regards the remit of discussion, although Germany’s post-war recovery was based upon it becoming an economic animal and forgoing a high-profile security role, it has not shied away from including a range of other issues in the summit’s discussions. In fact, it was at the 1978 Bonn Summit that a statement was issued on terrorism and hijacking. With the end of the Cold War, Germany began to assume a greater security burden and its role in the resolution of the Kosovo conflict through the G8 is an example of this.29 As regards widening the membership from the original summiteers, Germany has acted pragmatically. With the Soviet Union/Russia near its eastern borders, the German government was probably the most keen of the G7 members to extend assistance and welcome the former Cold War enemy into an expanded G8. Germany went so far as to relinquish its place in the order of hosting the summit to accommodate Russia, something Japan (equally close in geographical terms) refused to contemplate. As regards China’s relationship with the G8, Germany worked throughout the Kosovo conflict to keep China informed of developments and at the 2004 Sea Island Summit, Schröder expressed qualified support in a post-summit press conference for China’s inclusion in a G9:
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Perspectives of Member States Whether one would not have to think about inviting China – I mean, just think of the influence China has, even on such a strong and powerful economy as the American economy, not to speak of the European ones. Think of the impact it has. Then that certainly would be one country that we would have to think about first. I mean, I’m saying this with all the due prudence because I don’t want to make headlines over this, but certainly not only for political but also for economic reasons that [is] certainly something that one needs to think about.30
Japan Japan’s contribution to the summit discussions has often been to finance the initiatives brought to the table by other participants. The most well-known example of this was the “locomotive theory” of the 1970s whereby the leading economies of Japan, West Germany, and the US would pull the other G7 economies out of recession. Equally, Japan was expected to contribute a large proportion of aid to Russia after the end of the Cold War. In the 1990s, Japan found this role problematic as its economy faltered. Although being known more as an ATM than an “ideas man,” with some justification, on occasion Japan has sought to take the lead in the discussion of specific issues. Prime Minister Nakasone Yasuhiro launched his Human Frontiers Science Programme at the 1987 Venice Summit, and Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro¯ has been keen to promote the discussion of African development and environmental issues at recent summits. In addition, the Japanese government has not shied away from seeking to take domestic and/or non-G8 issues to the summit table in an attempt to secure international approval. For example, support for Japan’s position over the Northern Territories dispute with the Soviet Union/ Russia found its way into the communiqués of three summits in the early 1990s, and the issue of the kidnapping of Japanese citizens by DPRK agents found its way into the summit statements in the early 2000s. The most salient aspect of Japan’s membership of the G8 is that it is the only Asian participant. In a forum dominated by Europeans and North Americans, the Japanese government has actively sought to input Asian issues and perspectives into the discussion at the summit table and act as a bridge between East and West (especially on the four occasions when Japan has acted as the host of the summit: 1979, 1986, 1993 and 2000). The assumption and recognition of this role can be seen in the memoirs of Yoshino Bunroku, one of the earliest Japanese
Perspectives of Member States 51 sherpas, recalling Prime Minister Miki Takeo’s position at the 1975 Rambouillet Summit: “[Miki] always felt strongly about speaking for Asia . . . At that time Southeast Asian nations . . . didn’t have a lot of confidence then, so I think they welcomed Japan’s willingness to speak for them and were willing to support Japan. I think that is why he spoke about Southeast Asia with confidence.”31 To this end, foreign ministry officials and even the prime minister himself have toured Japan’s Asian neighbours both before and after the summit and conducted telephone meetings in order to collect opinions and issues of regional interest and report back on the summit’s discussion and possible outcomes.32 When hosting the summit, the Japanese government has worked to input other Asian voices more directly into the discussions. This was most obvious at the 1993 Tokyo Summit when Japan worked towards inviting Indonesian President Suharto to the summit.33 Similarly, some discussion of and tentative approaches towards China’s participation as an observer characterized the preparations for the 2000 Okinawa Summit. However, it is not just the motivation to act as Asia’s representative that characterizes Japan’s position within the G8. The fact that the Japanese prime minister was invited to the very first summit at the château of Rambouillet in November 1975 was regarded in Japan as recognition of its position in the global political economy and its status as a great power of the day. It must be remembered that although Japan had been admitted to the UN in December 1956, it was still excluded from a permanent position on the UNSC despite its growing economic status and contributions to the maintenance of this body.34 Thus, the G8 represents for the Japanese government and its people validation of its status in the world and to this end it has worked actively to ensure that the summit is successful (especially when hosted in Japan). However, Japan has felt excluded from the inner sanctum of the G8. This was felt particularly strongly when in January 1979 Japan was not invited to the Gaudeloupe Summit of the core four: France, Germany, the UK, and US. Japan was seen as having little to contribute to the discussion of security issues, even though arms sales to China was included on the agenda, and the Japanese government’s reaction was described as “ambivalent.”35 Japan’s active participation in the summit process is also stifled by aspects of its domestic politics that prevent the prime minister from realizing the independent, figurehead role played by his counterparts. In Japan, the prime minister is often a transient figure, more the product of inter-factional compromise between factions of the ruling
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Liberal Democratic Party. Between 1975 and 2005, fourteen Japanese prime ministers attended the summit (not including 1980 when the Foreign Minister deputized for recently deceased Prime Minister Ohira Masayoshi), in contrast to three German chancellors, five UK prime ministers, and six US presidents (see Box 2.2). Only two prime ministers – Nakasone Yasuhiro and Koizumi Junichiro¯ – have a record of sustained summit attendance (five summits each) combined with a proactive (even aggressive) approach to summit diplomacy that stands in relief to the traditional characterization of the Japanese prime minister as silent participant (see Box 2.1). Japan has demonstrated an improved but still average commitment to summit pledges. From 1975 to 1989, it was ranked towards the bottom of G8 summiteers with a compliance rate of 26.2 per cent. However, from 1996 to 2001, this rate improved to 48 per cent, putting Japan just above the average compliance rate.36 The Japanese government has shown more application in its efforts to host successful summits and it has achieved a high level of consistency with its four summits having been awarded grades of B+, B+, C+, and B resulting in an average of a B (see Box 1.2). The Japanese public pay a great deal of attention to the summit and it attracts probably more newspaper coverage than in any other country. The Japanese people echo its government’s position that the G8 confirms its great power status, although a minority of extremists have targeted the summit for violent protest. Like other G8 participants, the Japanese prime minister has equated a positive performance at the summit with an increase in popular support at home and on occasions opinion polls have reacted accordingly.37
Italy Italy’s position in the G7/8 is as one of the peripheral powers that has oriented its foreign policy towards multilateral mechanisms. In other words: Italian leaders know what it means to be a team player, how to be mandate-sensitive, and ultimately how to master the politics of coordinated decision-making across jurisdictions. The record of Italian achievements over the period the summits have been meeting are testimony to the extent to which concert summitry is a natural extension abroad of Italian domestic political practices, a reality which has enabled Italy to emerge as a leading survivor.38
Perspectives of Member States 53 The G7/8 is not only a forum in which the Italians are comfortable, it also provides them with access to and the status associated with the discussion table of contemporary great powers. This tends to exaggerate Italy’s importance in international affairs. Originally, Italy was only included (with strong US backing) within the very first summit at a very late stage, with one objective being to secure its position within the leading capitalist economies of the West in the face of the rise of Communism. Italian-hosted summits have been below average with the four summits it has hosted having been awarded grades of C+, D, C, and B, averaging out at a C (see Box 1.2). The Italian government has been one of the most eager to include political and security issues on the summit agenda. The 1980 Venice Summit dealt with Afghanistan and the US hostage crisis in Iran. A similar trend was noticeable at the second 1987 Venice Summit.39 Whereas the 2001 Genoa Summit saw a return to economic issues and the successful launching of the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations. However, the Italians’ role at the summit has been hampered by the inconsistency and short lifespan of its leaders. In total, from 1975 to 2005, thirteen Italian leaders attended the summit with Silvio Berlusconi ranking as the longest-serving Italian summiteer with six summits (five in succession since 2001). This is partly a reflection of the Italian political system and renders Italian representation at the summit alongside Japan’s. As regards Italy’s attitude towards the engagement of civil society in the summit process, the Genoa Summit demonstrated a double-edged sword. On the one hand, Genoa has been rated as one of the more successful and productive summits and as regards the G8’s engagement with civil society, Berlusconi declared the need to introduce measures to promote dialogue during the upcoming fifth summit cycle.40 However, on the other hand, Genoa was remembered for the heavyhanded approach to policing and the death of one demonstrator. As regards expanding the membership of the summit, Italy was eager to include Russia as part of the G8 and it was at the 1994 Naples Summit that Russia joined the political discussions. Berlusconi has also expressed support for the addition of China and India to create a G10 by announcing that “[i]t doesn’t make much sense for us to talk about the economy of the future without two countries that are protagonists on the world stage.”41 As part of the policy of outreach, the leading African leaders from Algeria, Egypt, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa were invited for the first time to the final day of the Genoa Summit so that the New Partnership for Africa’s Development could be announced.
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Canada Canada is a country with a long tradition of multilateralism in its foreign policy. One summit-watcher has captured this tradition in relation to the G8 by paraphrasing Voltaire: “[i]f the G8 did not exist, the Canadians would undoubtedly want to invent it. That is how important the G8 is to Canada’s international role.”42 However, Canada is not an original summit member. Its participation at the first Rambouillet Summit was discussed but ultimately rejected although Japan played the role of reporting back to the Canadian government after the summit on the major discussions. Only after overcoming considerable French opposition and with the goal of creating transatlantic balance was Canada invited to the summit table in 1976. In 1986, Canada (along with Italy) joined the meetings of the G7 finance ministers that replaced the G5. As for Italy and Japan, membership of the G8 accords Canada great power status that it is denied elsewhere. Between 1975 and 2005, Canada was represented by six prime ministers, with Jean Chrétien establishing himself as the longestserving summiteer with ten consecutive summits. Canada’s participation is rather similar to that of the UK, also in the fact that Canada is the only other summit member to have been represented by a woman, Kim Campbell, during the period. Canada’s level of compliance with summit pledges is high and always has been. From 1975 to 1989, Canada was the second most compliant summit member with a rate of 40.9 per cent, just behind the UK. More recently, from 1996 to 2001, its compliance has risen to 53 per cent and it has maintained its second position.43 The four summits it has hosted have been above average with a C, C-, B+, and B+ having been awarded by summit-grader Nicholas Bayne, averaging out at a B- (see Box 1.2). This fits Chrétien’s assessment that “Canada can further its global interests better than any other country through its active membership in key international groupings, for example hosting the G7 Summit.”44 Canada has worked to ensure the success of the summit – the first summit it hosted in 1981 at Ottawa resulted in the creation of the Quad – and has acted independently of its hegemonic neighbour, the US, by responding independently or building coalitions with its European and Japanese counterparts. In addition, the Canadian government has displayed little resistance to the expansion of the summit agenda into new issueareas. In fact, before the terrorist attacks of 9/11 shifted the focus of the 2002 Kananaskis Summit to terrorism, this had been billed as the
Perspectives of Member States 55 “education summit.” Equally, environmental and development issues have been placed on the agenda by Canada. Canada was particularly eager to reform the summit process and return it to its original intention. These efforts came clearly into relief at the 1995 Halifax Summit and Kananaskis. At Halifax, the venue was shifted away from a major city. At Kananaskis, the length of the summit was reduced to two days, as it had been in the early days of the summit and the atmosphere created in Canadian Rockies miles from the media and civil society was one of relaxed informality. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi described it as being “ringed by mountains, surrounded by greenery and protected by bears.”45 Whereas, one White House spokesman declared that “leaders [are] literally bumping into each other, talking informally, which is what the G8 was always intended to be.”46 As regards expansion of the G8, Canada has supported Russia’s integration and it was at the Kananaskis Summit that Russia was accorded full rights as a member of the G8. The Canadian government has also been extremely supportive of the creation of a Group of Twenty (G20) of finance ministers and central bank governors (Paul Martin served as the chair for two years before becoming prime minister) and hopes to replicate this grouping at the level of the leaders: As envisioned by Martin, it would play the roles of both a deliberative body, for free and frank informal exchange, and a directional body, producing consensus on priorities and policies. . . . The G20 helped the world’s economic leaders to go from simply managing crises to making long-term improvements in the international economy . . . a leaders’ forum could do something similar for political problems.47 After being invited to the G8 summit for the first time at Genoa, Canada continued this trend the following year in 2002 by inviting African leaders to participate as equals in a summit session on Africa. Finally, it should not be forgotten that Canada is home to the G8 Research Group, the leading centre for G8 studies and without whose resources many publications on the G8 (this book included) could not have been written.
The EU The EU occupies a peculiar position in the summit process. The EU is a highly legalized, bureaucratized, and formal international organization
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to which member states concede their sovereignty, whereas the G8 is an informal gathering of like-minded leaders with no legal basis. No two bodies could be further apart in character and objectives. Although the EU’s participation has created a degree of friction, there have also been areas of cooperation. It is often incorrectly said that “eight men sat round a table” constitute the G8 summit. Ignoring the gender bias of this statement, it is more usually the case that nine (and sometimes ten) men are sat round the table as the President of the EEC Commission has attended the summit since 1977 and the President of the European Council since 1982. According to the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which accords the European Commission the sole right to speak on the behalf of its members on a range of economic issues, the European G8 members could be regarded as acting in violation of the treaty. Thus, this oftenforgotten ninth participant was originally invited in order to avoid these complications and give a voice to the smaller states of Europe at the summit. Pascal Lamy, sherpa to Jacques Delors, President of the European Commission from 1985 to 1989, justified EC participation in the following terms: The first and most important reason is that the European Community has taken over powers from its member states in a number of areas which are also treated by the Summits . . . The second reason is that the process of political cooperation is becoming increasingly important within the European Community; and Summits which were initially confined to economic issues have also to a growing extent turned their attention to international political questions . . . The third reason is that its participation allows it to represent the eight smaller states that are not included in their own right.48 Although on paper the EU is a full member of the G8 that participates in the preparations through a sherpa and sends a delegation to each summit, it does not have the right to host a summit, was only invited to participate in political discussions from the 1981 Ottawa Summit onwards, and its contribution has often been limited to one of observer. The presidency of the European Council rotates amongst the members of the EU, and on occasions when it is not held by France, Germany, Italy or the UK, then the summit table becomes slightly more crowded. This also begs the question of whether the EU members of the G8 should coordinate their position with other
Perspectives of Member States 57 members of the EU and the EU itself. As the G8 is not formally recognized as an international organization, a consensus that there is no need as long as this does not interfere with EU policy has emerged but no clear answer.49 Non-EU members of the G8 also regard EU representation as creating an imbalance. Thus, there is an argument that the European G8 members should conflate their representation into a single EU seat at the summit table, although it is highly unlikely that this will happen in the near future. It has been argued that allowing the EU into the G8 runs counter to its founding principles of creating an informal gathering of like-minded leaders by introducing the representative of a formal and highly bureaucratized international organization and breaking the circle of intimacy by allowing outsiders into the process. In fact, Giscard d’Estaing objected to the inclusion of the President of the EEC Commission for these very reasons.50 However, the EU has contributed to the working of the G8. The President of the European Commission Jacques Delors was a longterm participant in the summit (longer than many presidents and prime ministers), and at the 1989 Paris Summit the EU was given a key role in the organization of the programme for extending aid to Eastern Europe known as “Poland and Hungary: Aid for Restructuring of the Economies” and the creation of the G24.51 It is also well positioned to discuss both economic issues such as financial stability on the one hand, and political and security issues such as conflict prevention in Kosovo on the other hand.
New Members? As is clear from the above discussion of the actors involved and the history of the summit process provided in Chapter 1, no criteria exist to approve or disqualify membership of the G8. New members have been added to the original six leaders who met at Rambouillet (Canada, the EU, and Russia) but these decisions have been made without reference to any formalities or qualifications. Thus, the accusation that has often been levelled at the G8 as a result is one of lack of legitimacy, yet over the years the G8 has sought to address this issue through a policy of outreach whilst maintaining the core membership. For example, at the first Tokyo Summit in 1979, the Japanese government sought to invite Australia, and at the third Tokyo Summit in 1993 it went to considerable lengths to accommodate Indonesian President Suharto’s demands for an audience with G8 leaders, ultimately by arranging a pre-summit meeting with US President Bill Clinton.
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As a result of its increasing economic importance, probably the most touted potential member of the G8 is China.52 China has traditionally been openly hostile towards the G7/8 summit by ignoring or dismissing its communiqués and emphasizing the importance of the UNSC, upon which China has a permanent seat. China did become the focus of the G7’s attention in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre when on the one hand the Western members used the vehicle of the G7 to introduce sanctions, and on the other hand Japan sought to appeal to the other summiteers to soften and eventually lift these sanctions. Despite this traditional tension between the G8 and China, Japanese Prime Minister Obuchi Keizo¯ attempted unsuccessfully to invite China to the 2000 Okinawa Summit. French President Jacques Chirac was more successful in inviting Chinese President Hu Jintao to an enlarged dialogue meeting on the first day of the 2003 Evian Summit. Since then, Hu has attended the 2004 Sea Island Summit and 2005 Gleneagles Summit in a similarly limited capacity. If the example of Russia’s membership is anything to go by, the logical progression is that China will be invited eventually to become part of a G9. Unlike Russia, however, this is likely to be because of China’s economic importance. This would certainly enhance the G8’s legitimacy and hopefully constructively engage China in another international grouping whereby it will be encouraged to behave in line with international norms. However, there are a number of problems that exist that make China’s membership of a G9 highly unlikely. First, although the G8 does not have declared criteria for membership, it is a grouping of liberal, free-market democracies and China still has a long way to go before it can be thought of in the same bracket as Canada and the UK. Second, China is still a developing country and as the focus of much summit discussion over recent years has been the distribution of G8 members’ funds, it would seem peculiar to include China in these discussions. Third, the Japanese government would view the inclusion of China with suspicion as this would devalue the longstanding role Japan has cultivated for itself of Asia’s sole representative at the summit. Echoing the discussions that surround reform of the UNSC, there are also other candidates with equally valid claims to membership of an expanded G8 and who would add to the geographical representation of the grouping. In particular, Brazil, India, and South Africa could provide important regions, previously unrepresented at the summit, with a voice at the summit table. The logical conclusion of this argument is that if the G8 is to be expanded as a result of outreach, can it not be replaced with a new
Perspectives of Member States 59 grouping, known as the G20?53 The G20 was created in September 1999 as a meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors from the G8 members (including the EU), Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, and Turkey. This was the result of a meeting of the G7 on the first day of the 1999 Cologne Summit and aimed to provide a more effective force for strengthening the international financial architecture.54 This grouping embraces the main candidates for inclusion in an expanded G8 in addition to many of the dialogue partners that have joined the annual summit over recent years as part of the outreach policy. The logic of replicating this kind of meeting at the leaders’ level is similar to that which linked the meetings of finance ministers in the White House library to the Rambouillet Summit. It would also contribute to addressing the issue that has constantly plagued the G8: illegitimacy, an issue that will be explored in more detail in Chapter 5.
4
Achievements and Failures
In the 1979 film, Monty Python’s Life of Brian, the complaint “What have the Romans ever done for us?” is famously heard. A similar question has been regularly levelled at the G7/8. However, the question of what the G7/8 has done for us is a very difficult question to answer, owing to the nature of this forum for informal discussion. Nevertheless, the aim of this chapter is to attempt to establish the concrete outcomes, successes, and failures of the summit process. Although established as a forum for the coordination of macroeconomic policy, the G7/8 summit rapidly came to address a range of other issues such as energy consumption, East–West tensions, international terrorism, debt relief, education, and so on. Thus, in order to enforce some order upon these issues, this chapter will be divided into the four main sections of economic, political, security, and social issues. However, at the same time, the reader needs to be aware that these divisions are artificial and that a degree of inevitable overlap exists between these issue-areas as most of the specific issues under discussion here are of a multifaceted nature. In other words, this division is simply a means of making greater sense of the remit and development of the G7/8’s activities and pinpointing its numerous contributions and failures.
Economic Issues As has been mentioned several times already in this book, the G7 was originally created in order to provide a forum for the discussion and management of macroeconomic policies. What is more, the early participants in the summit meetings of leaders were mostly former finance ministers; at the 1977 London Summit and 1978 Bonn Summit the leaders representing France, the UK, Germany, Japan, Italy, and the European Commission were all former finance ministers.1 Thus, it
Achievements and Failures 61 is not surprising that it is in this area where the greatest concentration of G7/8 activity can be found, alongside its most prominent successes and dismal failures. The issues that the very first summit was meant to address included macroeconomic issues such as a sound monetary system and stable exchange rates, economic growth whilst avoiding inflation, the promotion of sensible energy consumption, the liberalization of world trade, debt relief, and relations with the developing world. As regards economic growth, this period was well-known for the “locomotive theory” whereby the leading economies of the US, West Germany, and Japan would lead the weaker ones along. However, although the leaders of these three countries agreed to growth targets at the annual summits, they were under no commitment to meet them and this strategy was dead and buried by the 1978 Bonn Summit. Nevertheless, by the end of the 1970s the summit process had proved itself as a new and useful mechanism for face-to-face discussion and was “successful in overcoming the policy deadlock of the early 1970s and in restoring growth to the G7 and other OECD economies after the setbacks of the first oil crisis.”2 As regards these “traditional” issues for which the summit was originally created, the G7/8 has continued to deal with them although they might not occupy a central position on its agenda. However, since 1986 when the G5 meeting of finance ministers stopped meeting in secrecy and came out into the open as an expanded G7 with Canada and Italy included, it has been this forum at which macroeconomic issues have been discussed. For example, in September 1985, the G5 endorsed US Treasury Secretary James Baker’s proposal to devalue the dollar against the yen and the mark known as the Plaza Accord. Similarly the Louvre Accord was thereafter agreed in 1987 to prevent the continued decline of the dollar. Despite drawn-out negotiations until the eleventh hour, the 1979 Tokyo Summit (dubbed the “energy summit” at the time) produced a breakthrough compromise as regards the G7 members’ energy consumption at a time of oil shortages and price hikes resulting from the 1973 and 1979 energy crises. The eleventh-hour deal was a compromise amongst the leaders by which they agreed to country-by-country targets through to 1985. The daily US levels of oil consumption would be limited to the 1977 levels of 8.5 million barrels. The EC was to restrict its consumption to 1978 levels from 1980 through to 1985. In the case of Japan its oil consumption would be limited to 1979 levels for 1980 – 5.4 million barrels per day – and then somewhere in the region of 6.3 to 6.9 million barrels of oil per day through to 1985, an
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actual increase of almost 30 per cent on 1979 levels. At the same time, the Japanese government pledged to meet a growth rate of 5.7 per cent from 1980. The momentum created at Tokyo was continued the following year at the Venice Summit where the G7 leaders added a number of concrete measures to conserve oil use and sought to “rely on fuels other than oil to meet the energy needs of future economic growth.”3 However, despite any short-term stabilization, the targets decided in Tokyo were never met. As regards trade, the G7/8 has since its creation sought to apply pressure on the conclusion of multilateral trade negotiations conducted under the aegis of GATT and the WTO. The very first summit at Rambouillet saw the leaders agree upon a deadline of 1977 for the conclusion of the Tokyo Round of trade negotiations, although by the 1977 London Summit they were forced to move the deadline further back to 1978. The round was eventually completed in 1979, partly as a result of agreements reached at the 1978 Bonn Summit, thus illustrating the way in which the G7/8 works in an iterative fashion rather than providing a “quick fix” at the first attempt. One of the lasting results of the summit process, and an example of how it can both delegate to and create a more appropriate institution, is the quadrilateral meeting of trade ministers, the “Quad.” Since its creation at the 1981 Ottawa Summit, the Quad meeting of the USTR, EU Trade Commissioner, and Canadian and Japanese trade ministers has met three to four times a year and was instrumental in encouraging the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations. However, one of the G7/8’s biggest failures was its inability to provide the impetus to the beginning and conclusion of the seemingly neverending Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations. The contradictions between the belief in high ideals but the divisions between the summit leaders became evident in the uncommitted and unconvincing wording of Article 10 of the 1985 Bonn Summit’s Economic Declaration: Protectionism does not solve problems; it creates them. Further tangible progress in relaxing and dismantling existing trade restrictions is essential. We need new initiatives for strengthening the open multilateral trading system. We strongly endorse the agreement reached by the OECD Ministerial Council that a new GATT round should begin as soon as possible. Most of us [my emphasis] think that this should be in 1986. We agree that it would be useful that a preparatory meeting of senior officials should take place in the GATT before the end of the summer to
Achievements and Failures 63 reach a broad consensus on subject matter and modalities for such negotiations. We also agree that active participation of a significant number of developed and developing countries in such negotiations is essential. We are looking to a balanced package for negotiation.4 The EC resisted the considerable pressure emanating from the US at the time to begin this new round and in its declaration the summit desperately attempted to paper over the cracks that were all too evident between these two positions. To a degree, this summit put the process back and has been given the worst mark by summit grader Nicholas Bayne, worse even than the purely cosmetic and unsubstantial 1976 San Juan Summit because at least that was just pointless and not damaging (see Box 1.2). Once the Uruguay Round began, the G7 was faced with the challenge of having to encourage its conclusion. The 1990 Houston Summit agreed on the need to strengthen GATT’s rules and to the creation in principle of the WTO but was ineffective in pressing home the conclusion of the round. The 1991 London and 1992 Munich Summits repeated these agreements but were also unsuccessful. In typically incremental fashion, it was not until the 1993 Tokyo Summit that impetus was given to the conclusion of the round, partly as a result of calling a meeting of the Quad before the summit to settle the issue of tariffs. The Uruguay Round could then be successfully completed in December 1993. As regards debt relief, although the Mexican debt crisis of 1982 was ignored at the 1983 Williamsburg Summit as a result of the emphasis on political and security issues, the G7/8 played a key role thereafter but in a typically difficult-to-discern fashion. The Brady Plan, which was proposed by US Treasury Secretary Nicholas Brady in March 1989 to provide debt relief for developing middle-income countries in Latin America based on the resources of the World Bank and IMF, was originally based upon the Miyazawa Plan proposed at the 1988 Toronto Summit. It was then extended at the 1991 London Summit to low-income countries and the relief available on debts was further extended at the 1994 Naples Summit. The G8’s dealings with Africa have been mixed. The UK has been one of the summit members that has taken on board the message of Jubilee 2000 and has spearheaded the issue of debt relief at the G8 summits. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, unable to miss a photo opportunity, has gone out of his way to engage with celebrity campaigners. Before the 2003 G8 Evian Summit, the rock musicians Bob Geldof and Bono met with Blair for a breakfast meeting to
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discuss debt relief and the upcoming summit. It was Blair that attempted to convince the US of the worth of the Jubilee 2000 campaign. Germany and Japan (depending on the administration in power) have also dragged their heels on embracing this issue. The 1998 Birmingham Summit was the first summit to place the issue so high up the G7/8’s agenda, partly as a result of the initiative of Blair, who became the first UK prime minister to host a second summit and was thereby able to promote the issue once more at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit. On the one hand, Birmingham was important as a result of the attention civil society groups, and in particular the UK church-based NGO umbrella group known as Jubilee 2000, brought to the summit. At Birmingham, the highpoint was a “human chain” of 70,000 people organized by Jubilee 2000 around the Birmingham convention centre where some of the G8 summit meetings had taken place (although the leaders were elsewhere on the day of the demonstration). In addition, a meeting was held with UK Development Secretary Clare Short. The objective was to elicit a strong and clear message on debt relief by the G8 that would be taken up by the IMF and World Bank. In preparing the Birmingham Summit, the UK government focussed attention on the need to take action to reduce the burden of debt shouldered by the most Heavily Indebted Poor Countries identified by the IMF and World Bank. Although the discussion of this issue at Birmingham was generally regarded as disappointing, Blair defended it as an important step forward to be built upon afterwards. To this end, he issued a separate document entitled Response By the Presidency on Behalf of the G8 to the Jubilee 2000 Petition, which acknowledged the efforts of Jubilee 2000, “[y]our presence here is a truly impressive testimony to the solidarity of people in our own countries with those in the world’s poorest and most indebted. It is also a public acknowledgement of the crucial importance of the question of debt.”5 Although a number of initiatives on debt relief were decided at Birmingham, they were evaluated negatively by Jubilee 2000. Thereafter the focus of the summit members and Jubilee 2000 moved to the following year’s summit in Cologne, Germany (the G8 summit member singled out by Jubilee 2000 as one of the main obstacles to resolving debt relief). However, a change in administration led to the more sympathetic Socialist Chancellor Gerhard Schröder facilitating the agreement of the “Cologne Debt Initiative” that aimed to reduce the debts of countries that qualified from US $130 billion to US $60 billion.
Achievements and Failures 65 Blair was a central actor in placing debt as almost the sole issue under discussion at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit. As mentioned in the Preface to this volume, the Gleneagles Summit stands out in the G8’s history as the most high-profile and eagerly anticipated summit. As a result of the Make Poverty History campaign (the natural successor to Jubilee 2000) and the series of Live 8 concerts, the level of expectation was so high that any G8 decision was almost inevitably going to disappoint. This demonstrated a failure on the part of the public at large and the media to understand that the G8 cannot provide a silver bullet and works in a more iterative style. Thus, a number of summit observers declared their dissatisfaction with the results. Dr Richard Norton, editor of the medical magazine The Lancet, wrote that “[t]he G8 summit drew welcome attention to the plight of the world’s least advantaged peoples. But Blair and Brown failed those who truly believed that they wished to make poverty history. Diplomacy won over delivery. Let that stand as the shameful epitaph of the G8.”6 Nevertheless, this was the fifth year that Africa’s problems were addressed with several African leaders in attendance. As regards debt relief, the “Cologne Debt Initiative” addressed debts owed to governments, whereas Blair turned the G8’s attention to the debts owed to multilateral banks. The finance ministers were able to agree in June before the leaders upon the immediate debt forgiveness of US $40 billion and the extension of full relief on debts to twenty-seven countries eventually. As regards aid, the leaders persuaded Bush, Schröder, and Koizumi and agreed at Gleneagles to double aid by 2010, totalling US $50 billion per year. However, agreements on trade were less impressive.7 Africa is an issue that now appears to be synonymous with the G8.
Political Issues Although created to address economic issues, as the G7/8 is simply “the biggest show around,” it is inescapable that it would come to address political issues.8 This was clear at an early stage and at the first Rambouillet Summit, Article 1 of the Declaration announced that “[i]n these three days we held a searching and productive exchange of views on the world economic situation, on economic problems common to our countries, on their human, social and political implications, and on plans for resolving them.” Furthermore, Article 2 emphasized that “[w]e came together because of shared beliefs and shared responsibilities. We are each responsible for the government of
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an open, democratic society, dedicated to individual liberty and social advancement. Our success will strengthen, indeed is essential to, democratic societies everywhere.”9 This emphasis on the promotion of democracy would continue to appear in summit documentation through the 1980s and into the new millennium, most recently at the 2004 Sea Island Summit when US President George W. Bush presented an action plan to promote democracy in the Broader Middle East. Clearly, despite being known as the “economic summit” in its early years, political issues were never very far away and, to a large degree, it has been the structure of the international system that has dictated the issues that is has addressed. During the first summit cycle, which ran concomitantly with the decline of US hegemony, the G8 provided a forum for the shared management of a number of global and regional political issues. For example, at the 1980 Venice Summit a day of discussion of political issues was scheduled for the first time and resulted in the release of four political declarations on the taking of diplomatic hostages, refugees, broad political issues (mostly occupied with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan), and hijacking. This initiative was continued the following year at the Ottawa Summit when the Chair’s Summary touched upon a wide range of political issues such as East–West relations, conflict in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and the Cambodian conflict, although it did little except to express concern. In the 1980s, as a result of renewed East–West tensions and US President Ronald Reagan’s desire to focus on related political issues, the G8’s attention was placed on East–West relations. Although it would be a gross over-exaggeration to suggest that the G7 was responsible for the collapse of Communism, it did provide a forum for the leading capitalist countries to meet and express their unity. For example, the Chair’s Summary of the 1981 Ottawa Summit began with the statement that “Our discussion of international affairs confirmed our unity of view on the main issues that confront us all. We are determined to face them together in a spirit of solidarity, cooperation and responsibility.”10 As mentioned in previous chapters, there was also a high degree of consistency amongst the leaders during this period – Mitterrand in France, Reagan in the US, Thatcher in the UK, Kohl in Germany and Nakasone in Japan. The G7 could be described as the bastion of the Cold War warriors and their solidarity was declared at every opportunity. During this period the 1985 Bonn Summit provided a good opportunity, with the fiftieth anniversary of WWII, to emphasize the integration of former enemies within the Western camp and make a link between the last war and the East–West conflict:
Achievements and Failures 67 Other nations that shared with ours in the agonies of the Second World War are divided from us by fundamental differences of political systems. We deplore the division of Europe. In our commitment to the ideals of peace, freedom and democracy we seek by peaceful means to lower the barriers that have arisen within Europe . . . Considering the climate of peace and friendship which we have achieved among ourselves forty years after the end of the war we look forward to a state of peace in Europe in which the German people will regain their unity through free self-determination; and in Asia we earnestly hope that a political environment will be created which permits the parties to overcome the division of the Korean peninsula in freedom.11 Nevertheless, like almost everybody else, the G7 failed to predict the end of the Cold War that began towards the end of the 1980s. Even towards the end of this decade, summit declarations and statements were still written in the language of the Cold War. They reaffirmed the rightness of democracy, capitalism, human rights and the G7’s policies, whilst extending the carrot of approval for any shift on the part of the Soviet leadership towards their position and waving a stick where no progress was evident. Towards the end of the 1980s and during the 1990s, the G7/8 provided the chief mechanism by which the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe’s transitions to capitalism and democracy were managed. From the 1989 Paris Summit, where a first attempt was made to include Gorbachev in the proceedings and the G24 was created to funnel assistance to Eastern Europe, the G7 dealt with the issue of providing assistance to the Soviet Union/Russia through to the final settlement of the amounts of aid in April 1993 ahead of the Tokyo Summit. Thus, the G8 has acted as global fundraiser. For example, US $26 billion in 1992 and US $43 billion in 1993 to assist the former Soviet Union (other examples of this role include the US $20 billion raised in 2002 to fund the Global Partnership against Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, and US $500 million raised in 2003 to eradicate polio as part of the G8 Action Plan on Health). However, more than the assistance provided, it was the inclusion of Russia within the framework of the G8 that had the greatest impact in bringing the former Communist superpower into the fold of the international community. From the mid-1990s through to the present day, globalization has commanded the attention of the summiteers. It was mentioned for the first time in the 1994 Naples Summit communiqué, “[w]e have gathered
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at a time of extraordinary change in the world economy. New forms of international interaction are having enormous effects on the lives of our peoples and are leading to the globalization of our economies.”12 Since that time, the G7/8 has sought to both reap the economic benefits of globalization and also limit its negative impact. Within this context of globalization, it was around this time that the format of the G7/8 went through a process of self-examination and reform in order to pare it down and prepare it for the challenges of globalization. Although calls along these lines had been made since the very first summit, this process began in earnest at the 1994 Naples Summit, whose communiqué asked: How can we assure that the global economy of the 21st century will provide sustainable development with good prosperity and well-being of the peoples of our nations and the world? What framework of institutions will be required to meet these challenges in the 21st century? How can we adapt existing institutions and build new institutions to ensure the future prosperity and security of our people?13 These questions were answered with a two-track approach. On the one hand, it encouraged reform of the main international institutions, especially the UN as it faced its fiftieth anniversary and in which it was ultimately unsuccessful. On the other hand, it sought to reform the G7/8 itself and was much more successful. Thereafter, a number of reforms to the summit process, as described in previous chapters, were introduced and the rise of the G7/8 to its central position in the provision of global governance can be dated back to this point. To a great extent, the greatest achievement of the G7/8 was its ability to reinvent itself. This section has deliberately avoided discussion of issues that although political can more comfortably be discussed in the following two sections on security and social issues, which are often overlooked or played down in the case of the G7/8’s remit.
Security Issues If it was inevitable that the G8 would have to address political issues, then the same holds true for security issues. In one of the more sustained analyses of the G8’s role in security, Risto Penttilä has illustrated the symbiotic relationship the G7/8 has experienced with international security: “[it] has played a significant and constantly evolving role in international peace and security since its inception in
Achievements and Failures 69 1975. Development of its security function has been part of its progression from a Western economic actor to a global political powerhouse.”14 He continues by dividing his analysis of the G7/8’s contribution to security into policy coordination and crisis management. These areas play to the G8’s strengths as it was originally intended to be a forum for the collective coordination of policy (albeit economic) and is flexible enough to adapt to crises as they emerge. In addition, it is clear that the G8 knows its limitations and is willing to delegate; in other words, “[i]t has left work at the coal face to the United Nations and to regional organizations, while urging them on.”15 During the three decades over which the G8’s history spans, it is these aspects of its contribution that are most salient. What is more, the discussion of security at the G7/8 has not been limited to the traditional “guns and bombs” definition of security and has embraced newer security threats. In fact, the first discussion of a security issue was terrorism in the shape of hijacking and hostagetaking, prevalent during the 1970s as a result of a number of high-profile incidents. Being probably the biggest terrorist target in the world today, the G7/8 has naturally taken an interest in combating terrorism. Despite recent attention on this issue, the G7/8 has a clearly traceable track record of initiating anti-terrorist measures (see Box 4.1). The 1978 Bonn Summit was the first summit to address a security issue – air hijacking – on an ad hoc basis at the initiative of West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and resulted in the issue of a brief (113-word) statement outlining the measures members would take and encouraging other states to cooperate: The Heads of State and Government, concerned about terrorism and the taking of hostages, declare that their governments will intensify their joint efforts to combat international terrorism. To this end, in cases where a country refuses extradition or prosecution of those who have hijacked an aircraft and/or do not return such aircraft, the Heads of State and Government are jointly resolved that their governments shall take immediate action to cease all flights to that country. At the same time, their governments will initiate action to halt all incoming flights from that country or from any country by the airlines of the country concerned. They urge other governments to join them in this commitment.16 The 1980 Venice Summit met at a time of rife hostage-taking in the Middle East and issued a declaration on the issue in which the G7 condemned hostage-taking and the seizure of embassies, consulates,
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and their personnel. As a response, the G7 members urged all governments in rather vague terms to adopt effective policies and promised assistance and support to each other in the event of any of the above happening.17 The 1986 Tokyo Summit focussed chiefly on terrorism and resulted in the creation of an expert group on the subject and a special statement on international terrorism and states (particularly Libya) that sponsored and supported it. Specifically, a number of measures were agreed upon including an embargo on arms exports to states supporting or sponsoring terrorism, limitations on the size or even closure of the diplomatic missions of these states, more rigorous extradition procedures, stricter immigration and visa procedures, and the encouragement of bilateral and multilateral cooperation between police and security organizations.18 The most salient reaction of the G8 to the events of 9/11 was to shift the summit venue to more isolated retreats. With a considerable history of dealing with terrorism, the first summit to be held after the terrorist attacks on the US was held in the Canadian Rockies and in the Chair’s Summary addressed the issue as its first priority: This was our first meeting since the terrible events of September 11. We discussed the threat posed to innocent citizens and our societies by terrorists and those who support them. We are committed to sustained and comprehensive actions to deny support or sanctuary to terrorists, to bring terrorists to justice, and to reduce the threat of terrorist attacks. We agreed on a set of six non-proliferation Principles aimed at preventing terrorists – or those who harbour them – from acquiring or developing nuclear, chemical, radiological and biological weapons; missiles; and related materials, equipment or technologies. We called on other countries to join us in implementing these Principles. We launched a new G8 Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction, under which we will undertake cooperative projects on the basis of agreed guidelines. We committed to raise up to US $20 billion to support such projects over the next ten years. We agreed on a new initiative with clear deadlines – Cooperative G8 Action on Transport Security – to strengthen the security and efficiency of the global transportation system.19 It is clear from Box 4.1, that prior to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the G7/8’s treatment of terrorism was very much conducted on an ad hoc basis. However, since the attacks, the issue has been dealt with more
Box 4.1 The G7/8 and Terrorism, 1978–2005 1978 1979 1980 1981 1984 1986 1987 1989 1990 1995 1996
1997 1998
1999
2001
2002
Statement on Air Hijacking Press Release on Air Hijacking Statement on the Taking of Diplomatic Hostages Statement on Hijacking Statement on Terrorism Declaration on International Terrorism Statement on International Terrorism Creation of the Terrorism Experts Group Statement on Terrorism Declaration on Terrorism Statement on Transnational Issues Ministerial Meeting on Terrorism, Ottawa Ottawa Ministerial Declaration on Countering Terrorism Declaration on Terrorism Ministerial Conference on Terrorism, Paris Agreement on 25 Measures for Combating Terrorism Creation of a Counterterrorist Directory of Skills and Competencies Announcement of P8 Conference on Land Transportation Security, Washington G8 Counterterrorism Experts Meeting, Washington G8 Counterterrorism Experts Meeting, London G8 Justice and Interior Ministers’ Virtual Meeting on Organized Crime and Terrorist Funding G8 Hostage-Taking Workshop, London Statement by the Participants of the Moscow Conference of G8 Ministers on Counteracting Terrorism G8 Counterterrorism Experts Meeting, Berlin G8 Counterterrorism Conference, Berlin G8 Counterterrorism Experts Meeting, Rome G8 Statement on the Attacks of 11 September G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors Action Plan to Combat the Financing of Terrorism G8 Foreign Ministers Statement on Afghanistan G8 Foreign Ministers Statement on India and Pakistan Statement on Cooperative G8 Action on Transport Security Progress (continued on next page)
2003
2004
2005
G8 Foreign Ministers Progress Report on the Fight against Terrorism G8 Foreign Ministers Recommendations on CounterTerrorism G7 Finance Ministers Action Plan: Progress Report on Combating the Financing of Terrorism Statement by G8 Foreign Ministers in Connection with Terrorist Hostage Taking in Moscow G7 Finance Ministers Press Release: Combating the Financing of Terrorism: First Year Report Building International Political Will and Capacity to Combat Terrorism: A G8 Action Plan Enhance Transport Security and Control of ManPortable Air Defence Systems (MANPADS): A G8 Action Plan Counter-Terrorism Action Group, Paris G7 Finance Ministers Statement on Combating Terrorist Financing, Washington G8 Justice and Home Ministers Recommendations for Enhancing the Legal Framework to Prevent Terrorist Attacks, Washington G8 Justice and Home Ministers Recommendations on Special Investigative Techniques and Other Critical Measures for Combating Organized Crime and Terrorism G8 Justice and Home Ministers Recommendations for Sharing and Protecting National Security Intelligence Information in the Investigation and Prosecution of Terrorists and Those Who Commit Associated Offences G8 Justice and Home Ministers Statement of Principles to Protect Asylum Processes from Abuse by Persons Involved in Terrorist Activities Joint Statement by President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Paul Martin on Co-operation in the Struggle against Terrorism, Moscow Statement by Tony Blair on the Terrorist Attacks on London Statement by the Leaders on the Terrorist Attacks on London (continued on next page)
Achievements and Failures 73 G8 Statement on Counter-Terrorism Secure and Facilitated International Travel Initiative (SAFTI) Summit Progress Report Based upon Andre Belelieu “The G8 and Terrorism: What Role Can the G8 Play in the 21st Century?,” G8 Governance 8, June (2002), 10. Available on-line at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/governance/belelieu 2002-gov8.pdf, visited on 5 September 2005 (updated and slightly adapted).
consistently. The G7/8’s contribution is to be found in its role in focussing minds and providing political leadership in addressing an issue like terrorism, which intersects at both the domestic and international, the economic and political. To this end, the G7/8’s activities take place on a number of levels from the summit meeting of leaders, to regular ministerial meetings, down to the group of experts, as mentioned later. At subsequent summits, G8 statements expanded their role in combating terrorism. At the 2003 Evian Summit, a G8 Action Plan was announced promising to create a Counter-Terrorism Action Group that would endeavour to build political will and oversee assistance in capacity building. Again, the G8 sought to connect its actions to other mechanisms of global governance by inviting a number of representatives from states, regional organizations, and international financial institutions, in addition to a representative of the United Nations Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee to the group’s meetings.20 Although the G8’s role in the “war on terror” has been somewhat limited by the unilateral nature of the US-led conflict, it has focussed more specifically on preventing the financing of terrorist groups. The Financial Action Task Force was mobilized for this task and its activities peaked by February 2002 when 150 states had ordered the freezing of terrorist assets totalling US $100 million.21 In addition, its attempts to address poverty in the developing world are also motivated by a desire to combat the roots of terrorism. The forum of the G8 also provided an opportunity at the Evian Summit for reconciliation amongst the leaders in the aftermath of the war in Iraq of 2003. Although there were rumours that al-Qaeda was planning to fly a plane into the Ducal Palace during the 2001 Genoa Summit, the G8 became inextricably tied to the threat of terrorism during the 2005 Gleneagles Summit when a series of bomb attacks on London coin-
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cided with the summit meeting. The G8 members have all been victims of terrorism over recent years to one degree or another and it is likely to remain at the top of the G8’s agenda in the future. This is highly ironic considering the origins of the G8 as a forum for the discussion of macroeconomic issues. Other non-traditional security issues that have been addressed at the summit have included refugees (the issue was discussed at the 1979 Tokyo Summit and the 1980 Venice Summit; the former was successful in urging UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim to hold a conference on the subject), energy and nuclear safety. Ultimately, if one were to take a broad definition of security, as scholars such as Barry Buzan urge us to do, then most of the summit’s agenda could be regarded as dealing with security issues. More traditional security issues were addressed at the G4 “holiday summit” at Guadeloupe in January 1979 where issues such as détente with the Soviet Union, the future of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, and arms sales to China were discussed. The deployment of US missiles in Europe in response to possible Soviet deployment of intermediate-range missiles was decided and became a topic for discussion at subsequent summits during the 1980s as East–West tensions reintensified. At the 1983 Williamsburg Summit, the G8’s strategy of matching Soviet deployment with its own and equally responding to non-deployment in similar fashion was declared in Article 5 of the Williamsburg Declaration on Security: “Our nations express the strong wish that a balanced intermediate-range nuclear forces agreement be reached shortly. Should this occur, the negotiations will determine the level of deployment. It is well-known that should this not occur, the countries concerned will proceed with the planned deployment of the US systems in Europe beginning at the end of 1983.”22 These consequent discussions led to one of the major achievements of the summit during this period – the integration of Japan into the West’s security position and the agreement in Article 6 of the same declaration of the indivisibility of the G8 countries’ security. More recently, the 1998 Birmingham Summit coincided with the Indian testing of nuclear weapons and was flexible enough to include the issue in its discussions and act to prevent its escalation through exhortation in its political statement on regional issues: We urge India and other states in the region to refrain from further tests and the deployment of nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles. We call upon India to rejoin the mainstream of international opinion, to adhere unconditionally to the Nuclear Non-
Achievements and Failures 75 Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and to enter into negotiations on a global treaty to stop the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons. India’s relationship with each of us has been affected by these developments. We are making this clear in our own direct exchanges and dealings with the Indian Government and we call upon other states similarly to address their concerns to India. We call upon and encourage Pakistan to exercise maximum restraint in the face of these tests and to adhere to international non-proliferation norms.23 Equally, the DPRK’s nuclear weapons programme has attracted the attention of the summit leaders and led to statements expressing concern and calling for inspectors to be allowed into the DPRK. Over both these issues, although the G8 may provide another source of possible constraint, it has not ventured into a more concrete or active role. These above examples all demonstrate the G8’s ability to respond to a crisis as it emerges or the particular issue of the day. In contrast, the G8 has also overseen the resolution of a number of regional conflicts. The long-running conflict in Cambodia was addressed in the summit’s declarations at the 1981 Ottawa, 1988 Toronto, and 1989 Paris Summits partly as a result of the Japanese government’s efforts. One salient example was the 1997 Denver Summit where Prime Minister Hashimoto Ry¯utaro¯ was able to garner the support of his summit colleagues for a proposal to despatch the special envoys of both France and Japan to Phnom Penh. What is more, it was the G7 that provided the framework for the raising of funds within the international community to support the 1991 Gulf War. However, Kosovo probably represents the G8’s most high-profile role in managing conflict resolution, although it was fortunate that the crisis in Kosovo occurred in 1999 when some of the most important actors also had one eye on the G8.24 Russia had just joined the G8 the previous year and was keen to affirm its great power status through the forum whilst keeping one eye on its national interests in Kosovo. Germany has had geopolitical interests in the former Yugoslavia and was chair of the G8 in 1999. Through a series of negotiations amongst G8 foreign ministers throughout the first half of 1999, UN Resolution 1244 sanctioning a peacekeeping force was drafted and adopted by the UNSC and an agreement on the resolution of the conflict was agreed and later confirmed by all the G8 leaders including Russian President Boris Yeltsin at the Cologne Summit in June. The key role played by the G8 foreign ministers in the Kosovo crisis was recognized by their
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leaders and encouraged in future: “ . . . we invite our Foreign Ministers to review on a regular basis the progress achieved thus far in this process and to provide further guidance.”25 The case of Kosovo demonstrates that it is possible that conflict with the UNSC over which is the leading body in the field of security will emerge in the future. On the one hand, the UNSC is the legitimate body but has suffered from a degree of overreach and some damaging failures. On the other hand, the G8 has shown itself to be effective but is completely lacking in legitimacy. Chapter 5 will return to this issue.
Social Issues A number of issues have appeared on the G7/8’s agenda that may be political and economic in nature but firmly intrude into the social sphere. Amongst these, the most prominent are the environment, health (in particular, HIV/AIDS), ICT, crime, education, and unemployment. The environment first appeared as a topic for summit discussion at the 1985 Bonn Summit as a result of German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s initiative and in the brief 217 words given over to it in the resulting Economic Declaration it was promised to coordinate initiatives through existing international organizations such as the OECD.26 Since then it has appeared regularly enough within summit discussions that it might be termed a traditional summit subject. It appeared prominently on the summit leader’s agenda as a result of a French initiative at the 1989 Paris Summit, which resulted in a 1,700-word section in the Economic Declaration on the environment and saw the members of the G8 pledge to explore how environmental protection could be inputted into individual government policies.27 The environment ministers of the G7 came together in Spring 1992 in Germany and met annually from 1994 onwards. At the 2005 Gleneagles Summit, although climate change took second place to African poverty in the media’s attention, it was the focus for much discussion, although little progress was made in the face of US intransigence on the Kyoto Protocol demonstrated in the statement “[t]hose of us who have ratified the Kyoto Protocol remain committed to it, and will continue to work to make it a success.” The only point of agreement amongst the summit leaders was that “climate change is happening now, that human activity is contributing to it, and that it could affect every part of the globe.”28 Health is another area into which the G8 has ventured and the health ministers of the G8 members have met irregularly since 2001.
Achievements and Failures 77 Margaret Thatcher, as chair of the 1984 London Summit, made an oral statement on cancer. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl made a similar statement on drugs. The G7/8’s attention has focussed in particular upon communicable diseases. HIV/AIDS first appeared as an item for the summit’s attention at the 1987 Venice Summit and it immediately identified the World Health Organization (WHO) as the most appropriate body through which its efforts to find a cure and educate the public should be organized.29 Japanese Prime Minister Hashimoto Ry¯utaro¯ proposed the creation of centres based in Africa and Asia to promote development and research in Asia and Africa into parasitic diseases and international cooperation between the WHO and the G8. These centres were created in Ghana, Kenya, and Thailand and when organizing the agenda for the 2000 Okinawa Summit the Japanese government built on this initiative by promoting measures to combat infectious diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis, through international exchange of information and equipment as well as through the provision of official development assistance. Thereafter, considerable donations to the fight against HIV/AIDS have been coordinated through the G8’s Global AIDS and Health Fund that by the time of the 2001 Genoa Summit totalled US $1.5 billion and included contributions from a number of G8 and non-G8 member states, international organizations, and private individuals; with the US leading the contributions with US $300 million or 20 per cent of the total fund, and Italy, Japan, and the UK each contributing US $200 million or 13 per cent.30 Further promises of increased contributions were made at Gleneagles as part of the emphasis on addressing African poverty. In the field of ICT, the 2000 Okinawa Summit resulted in the Okinawa Charter on Global Information Society that aimed to close the “digital divide” between developed and developing countries with the belief that “everyone, everywhere should be enabled to participate in and no one should be excluded from the benefits of the global information society.”31 Its first meeting took place in Tokyo in November 2000, a second meeting in Cape Town in March 2001, and a third in Siena in April 2001, after which in May a report entitled “Digital opportunities for all: meeting the challenge” was released.32 At the Genoa Summit, the “Genoa Plan of Action” was adopted fulfilling the mandate issued at Okinawa.33 At the Kananaskis Summit progress was reviewed and it was reported that participation had expanded to include almost 100 stakeholder organizations in more than thirty countries, and more than twenty major bilateral and multilateral initiatives had been implemented. Across the globe a range of initiatives had
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been introduced, for example community radio stations in Africa had begun to provide vital information on extreme weather conditions, health, nutrition, and HIV/AIDS prevention, in addition internet centres had been set up in Bolivia to provide farmers with a range of information related to crop production.34 In the field of crime prevention, at the 1996 Lyon Summit the G8 was responsible for the creation of the Senior Experts Group on Transnational Organized Crime (eponymously known as the Lyon Group). In addition, the G8 ministers responsible have met irregularly since 1999. Discussions at the 1998 Birmingham Summit were mainly taken up with discussion of this issue, specifically financial crimes such as money laundering, drugs, trafficking in persons, and the smuggling of firearms. Tony Blair was once again an innovator in the summit format as he arranged for the head of the UK national crime squad to address the leaders – an especially relevant exercise as 80 per cent of the squad’s investigations were taken up by cases with an international dimension. This initiative was supported by Yeltsin’s willingness to host a follow-up ministerial meeting in Moscow in October 1999 and another meeting in Tokyo in February 2000. Education is an issue that has appeared occasionally in summit discussions and resulted in concrete initiatives in the past. At the 1987 Venice Summit, the Human Frontier Science Programme was adopted in the final communiqué with the goal of promoting international scientific cooperation in biological research. The same declaration also took up the issue of bioethics addressed iteratively at previous summits, and promoted it into the future.35 The protection of intellectual property rights and prevention of piracy have also been the focus of summit discussion. However, education has more recently been addressed within the framework of globalization and development. At the 1999 Cologne Summit it was addressed in its own declaration under the “Charter on Lifelong Learning,” which declared that education was “indispensable to achieving economic success, civic responsibility and social cohesion,” and that “[t]he challenge every country faces is how to become a learning society and to ensure that its citizens are equipped with the knowledge, skills and qualifications they will need in the next century.”36 G8 education ministers met the following year in April 2000 in Tokyo to reaffirm the goals of the Cologne Charter and agreed to encourage the role of ICT in education, share best practices, encourage educational exchanges in order to reduce the “digital divide,” and utilize for such as the OECD and future G8 meetings as necessary towards achieving these goals. The Genoa Summit and Kananaskis Summit (which had been billed as the
Achievements and Failures 79 “education summit” until the events of 9/11 shifted the focus firmly towards terrorism) both promoted the goals of the Education for All initiative, whose goals mirror those of the Millennium Development Goals and whose targets include: 1) securing good quality and free compulsory education for all children by 2015; 2) achieving an increase in adult literacy of 50 per cent by the same year; and 3) eliminating gender disparities in primary and secondary education by 2005. As regards reducing unemployment and other labour issues, the G7 employment ministers met for the first time at a conference on jobs held in Detroit, US in 1994. Since then, they have met annually since 1996. However, unemployment had appeared as an issue on the G7/8’s agenda from the 1970s in terms of sustaining economic growth in members’ own economies. The 1998 Birmingham Summit included “employability and inclusion” as a topic for discussion but most of the actual detailed work was done at lower levels in advance of the summit and approved by the G7 finance ministers before the leaders did the same.37
An Ever-Expanding Agenda It is clear that the remit of the G7/8’s discussions has been wideranging and constantly expanding. Despite having been established with the goal of producing collective decisions to solve essentially economic issues, it was not long (especially with the bipolar tensions of the 1980s) before political and security issues came to be included and even dominate individual summits. With the end of the Cold War and the intensification of globalization, social issues and the sharing of best practice in addressing them came to be added to the summit. As regards the question originally asked at the beginning of this chapter, the G7/8 is a flexible forum that has registered a number of positive results by highlighting an issue, reaching a collective agreement, and then delegating to the relevant international organization. Although debatable, the most salient amongst these achievements are probably managing the end of and fallout from the end of the Cold War, providing a vehicle for highlighting and popularizing the issue of debt relief and carving out an embryonic role in conflict prevention. However, it is also evident that the G7/8 can only be as successful as the participants wish it to be, although it is often the forum and not these participants that bears the brunt of criticism when decisions cannot be reached. Some of the summit process’s biggest embarrassments include the failure to conclude the long-running Uruguay
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Round of trade negotiations earlier and the divisions that emerged in the 1980s between the US and Europe over East–West trade. This begs the tricky but necessary question of whether the world is a better or worse place because of the G7/8 – something the following two chapters will explore in more detail.
5
Criticisms and Challenges
Since the first summit meeting at the château of Rambouillet in November 1975, a number of criticisms and accusations have been levelled at the G7/8. Three issues in particular have dogged the G7/8 throughout its history: •
•
•
Legitimacy. As an unelected and seemingly unaccountable grouping of the most powerful states in the global political economy, without any legal basis or criteria for membership, the G7/8 has understandably been accused of illegitimacy. Overlap. There is an excess of international organizations, institutions, and regimes that possess the legitimacy and capacity to act in the provision of international public goods. In which case, the argument follows, as it overlaps with much of the work of these bodies, what is the G7/8 for? Effectiveness. To hold a G7/8 summit costs a great deal of money, which is highly visible, yet as far as the general public are concerned, the results often take a long time to be realized and are difficult to discern. Thus, the G7/8’s effectiveness and value-formoney are often called into question.
These questions have not only forced the G7/8 over recent years to justify its existence and expense through a number of initiatives, they are also core to the very future of the summit process.
Legitimacy Measured in terms of raw data, the G8 represents a powerful grouping: “[t]ogether, these eight states account for 48 per cent of the global economy and 49 per cent of global trade, hold four of the United Nations’ five Permanent Security Council seats, and boast
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majority shareholder control over the IMF and the World Bank.”1 In addition, the summit members account for roughly two-thirds of the world’s gross domestic product. The power, or rather potential power, is there; however, nobody has elected the G8. Moreover, unlike the UN, WTO, IMF, and World Bank, it has no constitution or legal foundation. Its meetings take place in plush hotels or resorts far removed from the protests of civil society or the watchdog of the media. Nobody knows what goes on around the table apart from those in attendance and no minutes are kept of their discussions. Admittedly, a statement or communiqué is released at the end of the summit but very few members of the general public bother to read it. It is this lack of legitimacy and transparency that is probably the most common criticism that has been made of the G8. In turn it has been described as a “closed club of an obsolescent rich white plutocracy,” which amounts to little more than a “global hot tub party.”2 As a result, “[m]any people question the right of eight countries . . . to take decisions affecting the rest of the world.”3 The investigative journalist, George Monbiot, has captured the undemocratic nature and the degree of illegitimacy displayed by the above-mentioned mechanisms of global governance (twice mentioning both the G8 and WTO) in the following colourful fashion: While the rulers of the world cloister themselves behind the fences of Seattle or Genoa, or ascend into the inaccessible eyries of Doha and Kananaskis, they leave the rest of the world shut out of their deliberations. We are left to shout abuse, to hurl ourselves against the lines of police, to seek to smash the fences which stand between us and the decisions made on our behalf. They reduce us, in other words, to the mob, and then revile the thing they have created. When, like the cardinals who have elected a new pope, they emerge, clothed in the serenity of power, to announce that it is done, our howls of execration serve only to enhance the graciousness of their detachment. They are the actors, we the audience, and for all our cat-calls and imprecations, we can no more change the script to which they play than the patrons of a cinema can change the course of the film they watch. They, the tiniest and most unrepresentative of the world’s minorities, assert a popular mandate they do not possess, and then accuse us of illegitimacy. Their rule, unauthorized and untested, is sovereign.4 The inherent problem with the summit is that what makes it unique and potentially effective – an informal, personal encounter of leaders
Criticisms and Challenges 83 that takes place behind closed doors – is what also leads to the kind of vehement criticisms outlined above. In fact, one leader stated that the perfect summit would be one in which “the leaders met in total secrecy, released an announcement only several weeks after the conclusion of the meeting, and revealed not what had been discussed or decided, but only that the meeting had taken place.”5 Although this might meet the needs of the G7/8 leaders, this would only serve as ammunition to the accusations of illegitimacy. Rather, it could be argued, the G7/8 needs to take on board the advice of James Rosenau when he wrote that “[i]n order to acquire the legitimacy and support they need to endure, successful mechanisms of governance are more likely to evolve out of bottom-up than top-down processes.”6 In this light, over recent years the G8 has responded by operating a policy of outreach to non-G8 governments, business, and civil society. As regards non-G8 governments, various African countries have been invited to participate at the most recent G8 summits held in the new millennium. As for the G8’s engagement with civil society groups, its relationship with Jubilee 2000 and the Drop the Debt campaign from the 1998 Birmingham Summit onwards is particularly illustrative. Finally, as part of the initiative of achieving legitimacy through transparency, the G7/8’s relationship with the media is important. As regards the inclusion of non-G8 governments in the summit process, this policy of outreach may be regarded as cosmetic at best, but in recent years it has represented a distinct trend in the development of the G7/8, especially as debt relief and aid have risen up its agenda. For example, during the 2000 Okinawa Summit, South African Prime Minister Thabo Mbeki (as chair of the Non-Aligned Movement), Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo (as chair of the Group of 77 developing countries), Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika (as representative of the Organization of African Unity (OAU)), and Thai Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai (as chair of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Roundtable) were invited to meet with both G7/8 members and representatives of the World Bank, WHO, and United Nations Development Programme. On the first day of the 2001 Genoa Summit, the G8 members met with a number of African leaders of the developing world for a formal dinner. Discussions on the second day of the 2002 Kananaskis Summit were focussed on large-scale aid to Africa in return for anti-corruption and free-market reforms in the recipient countries and were attended by leaders of Algeria, Nigeria, Senegal, and South Africa, and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. This trend has continued with leaders
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of developing countries also attending discussions at the 2003 Evian Summit (including China for the first time), 2004 Sea Island Summit, and 2005 Gleneagles Summit. Although there is no chance of any of these countries being invited to become permanent members, they do have some access to summitry at the highest level. Recently one particularly salient feature of the G8 summit meetings has been the protests organized by civil society outside the meeting place promoting a range of issues from African debt relief to the end of capitalism, in addition to enhanced transparency and accountability within the G8 or even its disbandment. Peter Hajnal, long-time summit-watcher at the University of Toronto, has described the period from 1975 to 1983 as one of mutual ignorance between the summit process and civil society.7 However, during the 1990s civil society and the G7/8 began to pay greater attention to each other, resulting in the level of activity witnessed today. For the G7/8, engagement with civil society is one more aspect of its attempt to address the problem that has haunted it since its inception: legitimacy. Jubilee 2000 provides a highly illustrative example of the summit’s positive engagement with civil society.8 Jubilee 2000 acted originally as an umbrella under which a number of NGOs, such as Christian Aid and Oxfam, concerned with resolving debt issues in developing countries, were able to come together. It was founded in the UK in 1996 and expanded rapidly all over the globe by the year 2000 when it discontinued its activities under that name. It used the slogan “Break the Chains of Debt” and targeted the year 2000 as the year by which to have achieved the goal of 100 per cent cancellation of the debts of developing countries. At the end of 2000, when this goal had not been achieved, Jubilee 2000 continued its campaign in individual countries. In the UK, it metamorphosed into the Jubilee Debt Campaign, which describes itself as “a think-and-do tank: to provide up-to-date accurate analysis, news and data, and facilitate communication to the north and south debt relief movement, and promote effective campaigning and action” and which works closely with two sister organizations – Jubilee Research and Jubilee Scotland – to continue the campaign.9 Jubilee 2000’s achievement was to keep debt relief on the G8’s agenda through peaceful means. The techniques of their campaign focussed upon: •
Demonstrations. A number of large-scale, high-profile demonstrations, including a human chain, mentioned in Chapter 4, were organized around the Birmingham Summit and continued thereafter. On the weekend before the 1999 G8 Cologne Summit took
Criticisms and Challenges 85
•
•
•
place, human chains were organized in Edinburgh and in London around the bridges of the Thames involving 50,000 demonstrators. The summit itself was then targeted a week later. A smaller protest was also organized in Okinawa. And, on 16 May 2003, a demonstration commemorating the fifth anniversary of the Birmingham human chain was held. The use of high-profile representatives. These representatives spanned the spectrum of popular and high-brow celebrities and include popular musicians and bands such as Sean “P. Diddy” Combs, The Prodigy, and Thom Yorke of Radiohead; actors such as Ewan McGregor; sportsmen such as former boxer and living legend Mohammed Ali; writers such as Harold Pinter; Nobel Prize winners such as Amartya Sen; and pillars of morality such as the Dalai Lama, the Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey, and the Reverend Jesse Jackson. As a result, it became a very mediasavvy campaign with wide appeal. Letter-writing campaigns. Before the 1999 Cologne Summit waves of 15,000 postcards urging debt relief were sent to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, the finance ministry and the socialist rival for the chancellorship Gerhard Schröder. After replacing Kohl as German Chancellor, Schröder placed debt relief on the agenda for the summit. An example of these postcards can be seen in the card Prime Minister Blair received from a 10-year-old English girl who asked “Please lower the debt to the bottom. Please keep your promise like you said at the meeting last year. Congratulations on your baby Leo. Please think about the babies in other countries too.”10 In the three weeks before he arrived at Okinawa, Blair received 150,000 postcards and 100,000 e-mail messages on the issue and travelled to Okinawa eager to discuss these issues. The extensive use of ICT, the favourite tool of NGOs, to coordinate activities such as those mentioned above, in addition to selling merchandise (including T-shirts and CDs), lobbying MPs, and encouraging schools to organize assemblies on the theme of debt in developing countries.
A World Bank spokesman has referred to Jubilee 2000 as “one of the most effective global lobbying campaigns I have ever seen.”11 However, the sincerity on the part of the G7/8 towards this policy of “outreach” to civil society has been questioned. For example, at the 2000 Okinawa Summit, the Japanese government was the first government to provide the necessary facilities and establish a physical base
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for a number of NGOs to conduct their activities. However, the management of this centre was characterized as coercive. The centre was under-used possibly because it was a considerable distance from the press centre, from which the NGOs were barred, cost US $91 per NGO to use, and involved registration procedures such as submitting individual photographs and registering individuals’ details such as address and height, implying surveillance of civil society by the Japanese government. More recently, the Make Poverty History campaign (the natural successor to Jubilee 2000) and the Live 8 concerts have played a similar role in seeking to make the G8 accountable. This mission can be seen in the words of MTV, the mouthpiece of the generation to which this campaign is directed: The G8 summits differs [sic] from other political meetings because of their informality; there are no formal rules of procedure, and the leaders usually meet in a relaxed setting away from the media. Because of that, critics say the G8 hasn’t gotten as much exposure to the public as is needed to instigate proper change. Enter Live 8.12 This leads us to another actor whose relationship with the G8 has often been overlooked – the media. To a large degree, the public’s understanding (or rather misunderstanding) of the G8 and the legitimacy of its role is a result of the media’s coverage. As Nicholas Bayne has stated: “[i]nitially the summits were treated with respect by the media. But as their communiqués got longer and they became occasions for public display, the media became cynical.”13 Most news reports tend to focus upon certain media-friendly issues, such as Africa and environmental issues rather than multilateral trade negotiations or education, the minority of violent protest rather than the majority of peaceful protest, and the position of leaders in the final summit photo or the lavishness of the summit venue and proceedings rather than the substance of the declarations and communiqués. In this light, one former sherpa has stated that the media in his own country do not digest summit documentation.14 In the UK, the media have tended to exaggerate the violence accompanying protests at the summit. Before the Gleneagles Summit, one Scottish newspaper erroneously carried a story with the headline “G8 protests spark blood supply crisis” concerning fears over the lack of blood donations and the possible need to import English blood in response to anticipated rioting at Gleneagles.15
Criticisms and Challenges 87 G7/8 leaders have been keen to hold press conferences after the summit in order to justify the decisions reached and the solidarity of the eight. Thus, the media centre has become a regular installation at summits although its proximity to the summit has changed considerably depending on the venue. At the 2002 Kananaskis Summit and the 2004 Sea Island Summit, the media were kept at arm’s length (fifty-six and eight miles away respectively). However, at the 2005 Gleneagles Summit, the media centre was included within the cordon around the summit venue. Finally, another of the media’s impressions of the summit is that it is nothing more than a three-day junket. For example, the media centre at the 2000 Okinawa Summit provided free food and alcohol, prompting one local journalist to wish that there could be a G8 summit every day. In a sense, the G8’s future challenge is one of spin-doctoring to ensure that the correct impression of the work and achievements of this unique form of global governance is communicated to the public at large.
Overlap Although a meeting held behind closed doors, the G7/8 summit has never operated as if hermetically sealed. Rather, it has located itself within the other mechanisms of global governance and sought to delegate the task of implementation to them when necessary. However, an abundance of international organizations and global institutions has led to a degree of overlap in their agendas. In the case of a flexible grouping like the G7/8, this has resulted in its remit extending to include all issues under the sun, and as a result in the eyes of some it has become a “forum without a purpose.”16 This replication in the work of the mechanisms of global governance has been pointed to by a number of summit participants, most noticeably UK Prime Ministers Harold Wilson in 1975 and John Major in 1994. As a result, a number of efforts have been introduced to streamline the duties and remit of these global institutions through the G7/8, some more effective than others. Although much larger in scale, the World Economic Forum (WEF) might provide a template for what the G8 could become. The WEF brings together a wide range of representatives from chiefly the business world, but also government, academia, civil society, and religious groups. It describes itself as: an independent international organization committed to improving the state of the world by engaging leaders in partnerships to shape
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Criticisms and Challenges global, regional and industry agendas. Incorporated as a foundation in 1971, and based in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Economic Forum is impartial and not-for-profit; it is tied to no political, partisan or national interests.17
The WEF certainly echoes the G8’s emphasis upon informality and flexibility. In this light and in reaction to the crisis of legitimacy, the creation of a Group of Twenty Leaders (L20), based upon the success of the G20, might well provide a solution. With the goal of promoting “open and constructive dialogues on key global issues, with clear focuses on how to meet the globalization challenges, how to facilitate balanced and orderly development of the world economy, and how to accelerate reforms in the international financial architecture,” the G20 has been widely praised over recent years.18 It might well provide the stimulation to create a new forum at the leaders’ level in the same way that the G5 did prior to the Rambouillet Summit. The G20 accounts for approximately 90 per cent of the world’s economy and an L20 would be a forum that could parry criticisms of irrelevance by including China and a number of important regional powers, whilst also addressing questions of its accountability. However, the question is not one of replacing the G8, but rather complementing its work. Thus, fears associated with the L20 proposal are that questions of membership will persist and that it would serve, in whatever form it might take, to eventually create a body similar to the UN. Furthermore, the issue of civil society’s participation would continue to demand attention. In short, the creation of the L20 should not be regarded as a magical cure for the problems in the architecture of global governance. The G8’s unique characteristic of exclusivity ought not to be forgotten as it can only continue to contribute as it has done by preserving this. At this point in time the G8 is an example of both “nested” and “overlapping” arrangements of global governance and to a much lesser degree an example of “competing” arrangements.19 On the one hand, this can be seen in the increasing number of global governance arrangements to which it has acted as midwife, in similar fashion to the UN family of agencies and organizations. On the other hand, with the expansion of its agenda, the G8 has intruded into areas of global governance for which it was not designed and in which institutions already exist. The G8’s goal has not been to usurp these pre-existing arrangements but rather to provide leadership and direction. Some have suggested there is a more competitive relationship with the UN as to which will provide the central focus of global governance, especially
Criticisms and Challenges 89 after the 2003 Iraq War.20 However, this is little more than speculation that ignores the concessions the G7/8 makes to the legitimacy of the UN. Rather than providing a concrete locus of global governance, the G7/8 continues to provide a talking shop for issues of global governance. Today and for the immediate future, the G7/8 is demonstrating its flexibility and ability to adapt to a specific issue of the day, and thereafter its readiness to delegate to a more appropriate body. In this way, although it may tread on the toes of other organizations and institutions, it never actually seeks to do their jobs for them. Rather, it seeks to encourage them into action on the basis of the consensus reached at the summit table. This reinforces the G7/8’s image as a plate-spinner and the UN, WTO, IMF, and World Bank as the plates that it endeavours to keep spinning.
Effectiveness In The English Constitution, Walter Bagehot distinguished between the efficient (the Cabinet and the House of Commons) and the dignified (the Monarchy and the House of Lords) aspects of British government. Whereas the former holds actual power, the latter “delights the eye, stirs the imagination, supplies motive power to the whole political system, and yet never strains the intellectual resources of the most ignorant or the most stupid.”21 A similar distinction (or rather accusation) could be made in the case of the G7/8. Summit meetings are often given a very high profile by the media but then rapidly disappear from our consciousness. As a result, the G7/8 often appears to lack concrete results, despite the initial expectations and the considerable expense. These accusations of ineffectiveness have been repeated over the years. In turn, the summits have been regarded as an “evanescent public relations spectacle, increasingly irrelevant to the serious business of national policymaking.”22 By the 1990s, it had become little more than a “ritualized photo opportunity.”23 In 1997, French Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine claimed that the summits had become “media circuses [that] only formulate resolutions full of empty rhetoric and stripped of decision.”24 One of the reasons the G8 has often been accused of being ineffective is that expectations of the summit process have often been too high. This was especially the case in the run-up to the 2005 Gleneagles Summit as a result of the high-profile Make Poverty History campaign and series of Live 8 concerts, as a result of which the adage that “eight men in one room can change the world” became widely accepted
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amongst the media and public. Not only was this an erroneous understanding of the way in which the G8 functions, it also raised expectations to an unsustainably high level and invited almost inevitable disappointment. This rather simplistic portrayal of the G8 can be seen in the following statement by Jamie Drummond, executive director of Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa, an NGO created by rock musician Bono of the band U2: “[w]hen these eight men sit in that room and look each other in the eye, they must decide, ‘What kind of man am I? Am I going to listen to the people?’ It doesn’t have to get fancy. They just need to decide to do it.”25 This thinking is symptomatic of a tendency to accord too much power and influence to the G7/8. A more extreme example of this trend is the claim that “[l]ike a phalanx they [the G7/8] march across the globe, pushing into the gutter anyone or anything that stands in their way.”26 Certainly, the G7/8 can be very influential and effective on occasions but only when a consensus is reached amongst its members and then acted upon by states, international organizations or NGO groups. The G7/8 is far from being an unthinking, single-minded behemoth of global capitalism. Rather, the role of the G7/8 for the most part is to provide a forum for discussion and the mooting of ideas. To ask the question “[h]ow much longer should we let them decide the fate of our planet?” is not only to miss the point, it is also to misunderstand the nature of the G8.27 In the words of the late Michael Hodges: If one expects, even with regard to just one issue, that some form of draft treaty will emerge at the end of 48 hours of leader’s [sic] deliberations, even if these follow ten months of sherpa meetings, one will inevitably be disappointed . . . One cannot expect a “just add water” approach to provide instant G8 solutions to serious problems.28 Nevertheless, to return to the original question, a number of problems exist in measuring the effectiveness of a concert arrangement like the G7/8. Although the G7/8 has no ability to enforce its decisions and relies upon the moral weight of its numerous statements and communiqués, compliance with the G7/8’s pronouncements might provide one index. In addition, various attempts to improve the functioning and effectiveness of the summit process can be pointed to, in particular UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s reforms introduced at the 1998 Birmingham Summit that separated the leaders’ meetings from the ministerial meetings and Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien’s
Criticisms and Challenges 91 initiative to limit the size of delegations, the length of the summit, and its documentation at the 2002 Kananaskis Summit. However, these reforms are premised on the idea of returning the G7/8 to its roots as an informal meeting of leaders conducted behind closed doors and have concomitantly been impacted upon by 9/11 and the protests at the 2001 Genoa Summit, which have led to the summit now being held in remote, heavily-policed venues such as Kananaskis (2002), Sea Island (2004), and Gleneagles (2005). As a result, it is open to debate as to whether the long-standing criticism of the summit process – legitimacy – has been addressed. One way of measuring the G7/8’s effectiveness would be to judge it by its own standards and return to its original objectives in order to explore the degree to which they have been realized. Bayne and Putnam have pointed to three structural features of the international system that encouraged the founding of the G6 in 1975: the decline in US hegemony and the necessity of collective management among European, North American and Japanese leaders; ever-deepening interdependence and the problems in which it resulted; and the increasing dominance of bureaucracies in resolving global problems and the perceived preference for political leadership and solutions.29 Judged by these three objectives, the G7/8 can be deemed in light of the information provided in the preceding chapters to have been successful. What is more, these goals are still relevant to the world today (simply replace the word “interdependence” with “globalization”). The G7/8 is essentially a political process that is not dominated by the US and where all participants can bring something to the table. As regards the G7/8’s reliance upon moral pressure to ensure compliance with its decisions, this can serve to influence the behaviour of prime ministers and presidents between summits, over time, and on specific issues, as was discussed in Chapter 2. In addition, an approaching summit has often served as a deadline for the resolution of a particular issue. This was the case with multilateral trade negotiations, in addition to the 1988 agreement on Japanese imports of US beef and citrus fruits hammered out before the Toronto Summit of the same year providing a pertinent example. It was also suggested by some that Okinawa was chosen as the 2000 summit venue in order to provide a deadline (althought unsuccessful) for the resolution of a troublesome dispute over the relocation of a US military base within the islands. Whether or not UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s initiative of each leader personally signing the summit statement will be effective or not remains to be seen.
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What the G7/8 has come to do very well over recent years is highlight a specific issue. To a large extent, paring down the summit meetings, reducing the size of the agenda and the length of statements and communiqués, and returning it to the original idea of an informal and personal meeting of like-minded leaders, were all intended to combat atrophy, facilitate the effective working of the summit, and increase the direct input from the leaders. Much of the preparation and consensus-building can be worked out at the ministerial meetings and then rubber-stamped by the leaders – this is what happened with the issue of conflict resolution in Kosovo in 1999. Equally, the personal input of leaders can be seen in issues such as ICT and African debt relief being placed on the G8’s agenda at the instigation of an individual leader. This is an initiative that has been welcomed by the leaders in the fostering of direct discussion at the summit table. As was demonstrated in the previous chapter, the G7/8 can claim a number of successes in a number of fields – pushing forward the multilateral rounds of trade negotiations, bringing Russia into the fold of international society, conflict resolution in Kosovo – as well as having suffered a number of failures. Whether or not the G8 is effective depends on a number of issues both within and beyond its control – the leadership of the host prime minister or president, the ability to reach consensus, whether or not an election coincides with a summit. However, when assessing the effectiveness of the G7/8, it is important to take a long-term viewpoint. To reiterate, the G7/8 is an informal gathering that deals with issues over years and even decades. Issues may appear, disappear, and then reappear. For example, the G7/8 has been dealing with the issue of terrorism on an ad hoc basis since hijacking first appeared on its agenda at the 1978 Bonn Summit but more consistently since the 1996 Lyon Summit created the expert group and especially since the events of 9/11. Similarly, pressure was applied annually upon the conclusions of both the Tokyo and Uruguay rounds of trade negotiations. Another way of thinking about the effectiveness of the G8 is by looking at the costs associated with hosting the summit in comparison to other mechanisms of global governance. In other words, how much global governance does the world get for its dollar? As mentioned in Chapter 2, the most expensive summit was the 2000 Okinawa Summit at US $750 million. The 2001 Genoa Summit was thought to cost US $225 million in total, and the 2002 Kananaskis Summit cost US $200 million. Before security costs exploded after 9/11, the 1999 Cologne Summit cost approximately US $7.5 million. In comparison, the UN budget for 2004–5 was just over US $3 billion. The WTO’s budget is
Criticisms and Challenges 93 approximately US $83 million. The OECD’s budget for 2005 totalled roughly US $410 million. Thus, in comparison to its fellow mechanisms of global governance, the G8’s costs fluctuate wildly but can, on occasions, provide value for money, especially compared to the UN. To an extent, as a result of the media’s profiling of the G7/8 and the general public’s acceptance of this portrayal, the G7/8 is damned if it does and damned if it doesn’t. Nevertheless, whether it is successful or not and identifying the circumstances that facilitate or deny this are important for the future of the forum and will ensure that it can act in an efficient manner and does not become an undignified mechanism of global governance.
6
Future Directions
This final chapter will act as a conclusion by looking ahead to the G8’s future, which at the time of writing appears to be unusually rosy. A number of key issues and roles that it can play will be highlighted in turn: its potential to provide leadership in setting the agenda of global governance; its function as a forum for like-minded leaders to come together in a spirit of unity that emphasizes its role as a Concert; possible future directions in light of Russia’s full membership since 2003 and the hosting of its first summit in 2006, in addition to the much-touted addition of China to form a G9; and the future of the policy of outreach to non-G8 members and civil society, seemingly delivered a setback after the 2004 Sea Island Summit and in doubt at the 2006 St Petersburg Summit.
Leadership In the early years of the twenty-first century, it appears that there is a paucity of leadership in global governance and the traditional international organizations that spring to mind as active or potential leaders appear to be in a state of disarray. Over recent years, the UN’s credibility has been rocked by a series of events. The administration of US President George W. Bush went to war with Iraq in 2003 without acquiring a UN resolution that would satisfy its critics and the longstanding impression that the UN was impotent in preventing conflict was compounded. Moreover, accusations surrounding the oil-for-food programme in Iraq administered by the UN have also damaged its reputation. This scandal was based upon accusations that UN officials were profiting from illegal sales of Iraqi oil between 1996 and 2003 and at one point implicated Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s son Kojo. In the end, a number of UN officials ultimately lost their jobs, Annan admitted lapses in the UN’s responsibility, and the reputation of the
Future Directions 95 organization suffered. Finally, and despite numerous opportunities, the UN has singularly failed to reform itself and develop beyond simply reflecting the power configurations of the immediate post-WWII international system. Equally, the EU and the process of European integration has stalled over recent years. In May and June 2005, both French and Dutch electorates rejected the EU Constitution, effectively killing off the document as the ratification of all twenty-five member states – some usually much more suspicious of the European project than these two original members – is required. The rejection of this core document, which was intended to provide a blueprint for future EU deepening and widening, led to an immediate decline in the value of the Euro and calls for a period of “reflection” on the very direction of Europe. It also demonstrated profound differences of opinion on what the EU should be and a gulf between the opinions of the peoples of Europe and EU mandarins. What is more, the expansion of the EU to embrace Turkey, potentially the first Moslem member of the EU family, has revealed doubts over Turkey’s record on human rights and some unsavoury racist attitudes at the heart of the union. Finally, the elaborate procedures for deciding the EU’s budget have led to paralysis at times and in the future require radical restructuring. The other mechanisms of global governance are also plagued by similar problems that strike at their very raison d’être. In this situation, it appears that the G8 could be become the mechanism of choice for the promotion of effective global governance. It is well-positioned to fill the gap and provide leadership on specific issues in keeping with its role as a forum akin to the Concert of Europe, as discussed in Chapter 1. The G8 emerged from the war in Iraq with its reputation in better shape than the UN’s and it has demonstrated a level of self-reflectivity and willingness to reform that is lacking in other mechanisms of global governance. Yet, for the G8 to successfully play this role, the leaders need to achieve a consensus and act in unity or else it will fail to act in a prompt and effective manner. What is more, to shift the analysis down a level, the G8 provides a forum for an individual prime minister or president when acting as chair and host of the summit to demonstrate leadership by promoting a “pet” issue. There are a number of examples of this that can be cited at each individual summit but one regularly cited throughout this book has been UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s placing of African issues very high on the G8’s agenda, to the degree that the forum has now become inextricably linked to the issue in people’s minds. Recently, as a result of attempts to streamline the summit process and contain its
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ever-expanding agenda, the summits themselves have tended to touch on a range of important issues but highlight a single issue at their core. For example, the Middle East at Sea Island, Africa at Gleneagles, and energy security at St Petersburg. This ensures that each summit reflects the host’s specific interests and desire to innovate but also serves to engage leaders on a single issue. Another important aspect of leadership has been knowing when to delegate. It has been a characteristic of the G8 since its creation that it has discussed issues, reached conclusions, and then delegated to a more appropriate institution, or has created that institution when necessary. As a result of the reforms introduced at the 1998 Birmingham Summit, this trend has been compounded. In terms of personnel and organization, the leaders have devolved a lot of the preparation and follow-up to their sherpas, sous-sherpas, international organizations, and have even created new posts to deal with specific issues: the Africa Personal Representatives who played a key and independent role after the 2001 Genoa Summit in promoting the G8 Africa Group.1 At the ministerial level, a schedule of regular meetings has developed with G7 finance ministers meeting throughout the year (usually four times) including immediately before the leaders’ meeting (as the G8 including Russia) and at IMF meetings. G8 foreign ministers also meet before the leaders’ meeting and have held ad hoc meetings as required. Thus, as it has done throughout its history, the G8 has continued to demonstrate leadership and direction in the deepening and widening of its activities. According to Nicholas Bayne, the improvement in political leadership as a result of the Birmingham reforms can be seen in three areas: 1) innovation, such as debt relief at Birmingham and Gleneagles, attempts to address the “digital divide” at Okinawa, and a new approach to the Middle East at Sea Island; 2) the trend to striking deals amongst the leaders themselves rather than rubber-stamping agreements reached at lower levels, such as the 2001 Genoa Plan for Africa and according Russia the right to host its first summit in 2006; and 3) the establishment of links between issues, such as agreement at Kananasksis to tie together the treatment of nuclear material and chemical weapons and the replenishment of the Highly Indebted Poor Countries fund in order to facilitate US and European contributions to both in a quid pro quo fashion.2
Solidarity The extant literature on the G8 regularly emphasizes that the goal of the G7/8 summit process was originally to foster collective management
Future Directions 97 of global issues and the success of any summit initiatives depends upon a sense of community and solidarity amongst its supposedly likeminded leaders. However, as a result of the admission of Russia and the US-led “war on terrorism,” tensions have begun to arise within the family of G8 members. The 2003 war in Iraq demonstrated the personal nature of the G8 and its role in fostering solidarity amongst these like-minded leaders. Whereas the UN was the scene of argument and division, the 2003 Evian Summit managed to produce a fragile consensus amongst the G8 leaders, who had been so recently divided over the war in Iraq, largely by avoiding such controversial topics and spending only eight minutes of the second day’s working lunch discussing Iraq. As a result, Bush and Chirac were on first-name terms, declared friendship and displayed a tactile relationship to the world’s media.3 This alone was no small achievement and as Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien stated “[i]t was a good meeting – it could have been a disaster.”4 Equally, on a smaller scale, the 2005 Gleneagles Summit provided an opportunity to heal the divide between the UK and French leaders. Prior to the summit, Blair and Chirac had come to blows over the EU budget, prompting a jibe made against the UK by Chirac to Schröder and Putin that “you can’t trust people who cook as badly as that. After Finland, it’s the country with the worst food”; a comment that led many to anticipate a clash at Gleneagles over more important issues such as Iraq. However, within the atmosphere of the summit meetings Anglo-French animosity never came into relief and Chirac was even impressed by the food served.5 It could be argued that the media attention on the discord between summit leaders in the run-up to summit meetings creates an unrealistic impression of tensions. After all, the leaders who attended Gleneagles were (with one exception, see Box 2.2) the same leaders who had attended the previous four summits. This represents a level of consistency and intimacy amongst the leaders never witnessed before in the history of the summit process. One possible fly in the ointment that has been pointed at is the unilateralism of the administration of US President George W. Bush. However, in actual fact, the Bush administration has shown a willingness to work within the format of the G8, despite suspicions towards other mechanisms of multilateral diplomacy, perhaps in recognition of the power that the G8 possesses.6 In any case, this serves as another example of the summit’s ability to foster solidarity. However, this period of relative stability in the G8’s personnel has already begun to disappear. At the 2006 St Petersburg Summit, three
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new leaders attended after elections in their countries: Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi (the only leader of these three with experience of the G8). What is more, Koizumi attended his last summit at St Petersburg, Bush will attend his last summit in 2008 in Japan, and Blair has already announced his intention to stand down in the intervening period. With problems of succession evident in many G8 countries, the G8 could well be entering a period of instability in the near future. Although there are certainly issues that are divisive within the G8, none of them appear for the time being to have the potential to shortcircuit the summit process. In short, it is highly unlikely that the summit will be abandoned any time soon. It already has a history of over thirty years behind it, making it a longer-lasting body than more well-known and widely written about groups like the League of Nations.
From G7 to G8 to G9? Membership has been and will continue to be one of the most widely debated issues as regards the future of the G8, as discussed in Chapter 3. For example, India has recently been touted as a possible member in the future and in terms of its growing economy, scale of pollution, regional importance and central role in many of the issues core to the G8’s concerns, it could make a convincing case. In addition, it is currently a member of the G20, has participated in outreach meetings with dialogue members and has been invited to the G7 finance meetings. However, China is understandably the most regularly touted potential member owing to its growing regional and global economic influence and its steady integration into the other mechanisms of global governance. However, it is unlikely to join in the foreseeable future and this is not only because it does not subscribe to the same norms as the current G8 member states. Rather, there is no consensus within the G8 as regards allowing China into this exclusive club. Once a consensus is reached, it should not take long to action the decision. However, as the example of Russia demonstrates, this could take a decade, from initially mooting the idea through to its realization. Since the first summit in 1975, the original leaders have only admitted three new members – Canada (1976), the EU (1977) and, twenty years later, Russia (1998). The accommodation of Russia has been controversial in itself and the G8 will most likely seek a period of consolidation of the forum, with a learning curve for Russia, rather
Future Directions 99 than hurry to include other members with little or no experience of summitry at the highest level. Essentially, the summiteers have agreed a summit cycle amongst the eight that will continue until 2010. It is highly unlikely that there will be any disruption to this plan and there is a strong desire amongst the summiteers to retain the personal nature of the summit and the exclusivity of this elite club. To expand the membership would be to dilute the G8’s status and effectiveness. As regards Russia’s status within the G8, despite calls for its expulsion, largely from the US, it will almost certainly continue to be a G8 member. Not only are there no procedures or precedences in place to follow in the case of stripping a G8 member of its status, it would cause enormous offence to the Russians who have consistently placed the onus on the prestige to be gained from joining the G8. More importantly possibly, there is no consensus within the G8 and, what is more, Russia is chair of the G8 during 2006 and little is likely to be done to jeopardize this.7
Outreach Rather than expanding the actual membership, the G8 has latched onto the perfect palliative – invite other participants as the necessity arises. Not only does this deflect criticisms of exclusivity and unrepresentativeness, it keeps the G8 relevant whilst maintaining its core. On the one hand, a number of important participants can be invited on an ad hoc basis to participate in either the main leaders’ summit or ministerial meetings. The ministerial meetings have demonstrated a high degree of flexibility in this regard, although the leaders’ meeting has also demonstrated there is a willingness to make meetings with specially invited participants a regular part of the summit timetable. However, it is the individual summit host that will determine who gets invited to a particular summit. Those invited have included governmental representatives, heads of international organizations, and leaders of business groups. On the other hand, civil society’s focussing of its activities on the G8 is not likely to disappear soon. As two activists have written, “[t]he Annual G8 meeting, like the meetings of the WTO, the World Economic Forum and the rest, cannot now take place without the presence of demonstrators. We have driven them away from open politics to the ‘retreats of the rich.’”8 Rather than hiding away in the “retreats of the rich,” the G8 will be best served by continuing to engage with the NGOs that constitute civil society. The Japanese government’s initiative at the 2000 Okinawa
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Summit that created an NGO centre was admirable but flawed. The Russian hosts made some limited attempts to incorporate civil society’s opinions into the summit proceedings during its first year as chair of the G8 in 2006. Despite the recent lurch towards authoritarianism, Russia’s chief concern was to act as a responsible host. Thus, on 20 December 2005, the creation of Civil G8 2006 was announced. This consultative council of a wide range of NGOs alongside academics and journalists was intended to become “a platform for a real dialogue and interaction between the Russian NGOs and G8 leaders, as well as provide a civic environment for the G8 2006 summit, a strong impetus for the development of civil society and rehabilitation of the notion of democracy in Russia.” As is often the case, this council operated on two levels. On the one hand, at the global level, it continued the process of outreach to civil society and transparency that has been so evident in recent years but stalled at the 2004 Sea Island Summit. On the other hand, it played a domestic role by providing Russian NGOs with an opportunity to petition the G8 leaders and world’s media in order to highlight the shift towards authoritarianism in Putin’s Russia.9 Whether or not the remaining hosts in this fifth cycle of summitry – Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada – will make more credible and concerted efforts to continue the trend of embracing civil society in future summits remains to be seen, although past behaviour would suggest that they will.
The Continuing Relevance of the G8 Ironically, after decades of criticisms and introspection, its future appears in 2006 to be more secure than ever. Although what shape it will assume is unknown at this point in time, the G8 is likely to remain central to global governance for a number of years to come. Even if the much-touted L20 is realized, this is unlikely to be at the expense of the G8. Rather, the L20 will provide another example of the flexibility of the G8 and the deepening and widening of the summit process. In the simplest terms, the world needs the G8 for the unique forum it provides as the only date in the annual calendar of international politics for the leaders of the most influential countries in the world to gather and discuss issues in a frank and unfettered fashion. Remarkably, for once in its history it appears as if the merits of the G8 have been generally recognized. Although it may play the role of both a dignified and efficient mechanism of global governance, it can be distinguished from the “usual suspects” of global governance – the UN, World Bank, IMF, and WTO – by its unique method of functioning and
Future Directions 101 the huge potential that lies with these contemporary great powers. The accusation that the G8 is nothing more than a No Action, Talk Onlytype of international forum is at the same time wide of the mark and yet captures its essence. At its worst, the G8 does provide nothing more than an annual junket for the world’s leading presidents and prime ministers. However, faced by the failure of more traditional and established mechanisms of global governance such as the UN and the EU, opportunities for the leading countries of the world to come into direct contact are rare and when well-prepared and properly organized can provide guidance on how to plug the gaps in the network of global governance. This can disparagingly be labelled a “talking shop” but by so doing would overlook the utility of such a forum. However, for this to occur a number of conditions must be met – a consensus must exist and legitimacy must be enhanced whilst retaining the intimacy fostered by this kind of grouping. This is not an easy undertaking. Pressure will be exerted for the G7/8 to change in the future from both within and outside of the forum. Although the G7/8 must be responsive to constructive criticisms and structural changes in the international system, it should not lose sight of its heritage of over four decades of international relations, aware of what has worked in the past and what has not. At the same time, activists, politicians, and academics should engage with the G8 process but without the perennial over-expectation that has plagued the summit. Rather, they should be aware of the uniqueness of the forum, its limitations, and its latent potential.
Notes
Preface 1 The Economist, 29 July 2000, 19. 2 The series currently stands at thirteen volumes. More information can be found at: http://www.ashgate.com/subject_area/politics/g8_series.htm. Introduction 1 Michael R. Hodges, “The G8 and the New Political Economy,” in Michael R. Hodges, John J. Kirton and Joseph P. Daniels (eds) The G8’s Role in the New Millennium (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 69. 2 Hodges, “The G8 and the New Political Economy,” 69. 3 More recently, the accolade of least written about and least understood entity in international relations has probably been transferred to the OECD. See Richard Woodward, “Global Governance and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development”, in Glenn D. Hook and Hugo Dodson (eds) Global Governance and Japan: The Institutional Architecture (London: Routledge Curzon, 2007). 4 Rorden Wilkinson, “Global governance: a preliminary interrogation,” in Rorden Wilkinson and Steve Hughes (eds) Global Governance: Critical Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2002), 2. 1 History and Development 1 “Gaggle of Gs” is a term coined by Roy Culpeper, “Systemic Reform at a Standstill: A Flock of ‘Gs’ in Search of Global Financial Stability,” Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/scholar/culpeper2000/ index.html, visited on 3 August 2005. 2 Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 395, vii. 3 John J. Kirton, “Guess Who is Coming to Kananaskis? Civil Society and the G8 in Canada’s Year as Host,” International Journal, 57, 1 (2001–2). Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/scholar/kirton2002/020507. pdf, visited on 7 May 2003. 4 John Hunt and Henry Owen, “Taking Stock of the Seven-Power Summits: Two Views,” International Affairs 60, 4 (1984), 658.
Notes 103 5 Nicholas Bayne, Staying Together: The G8 Summit Confronts the 21st Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 194. 6 “Declaration of Rambouillet,” 17 November 1975. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/1975rambouillet/communique.html, visited on 3 August 2005. 7 “Statement on Air Hijacking,” 17 July 1978. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/1978bonn/hijacking.html, visited on 3 August 2005. 8 Bayne, Staying Together, 18. 9 Robert D. Putnam, “Summit Sense,” Foreign Policy 55, Summer (1984), 73. 10 W. R. Smyser, “Goodbye, G7,” Washington Quarterly 16: 1 (1993), 19. 11 “Political Declaration,” 29 May 1983. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/1983williamsburg/security.html, visited on 3 August 2005. 12 Bayne, Staying Together, 24. 13 “Bonn Economic Declaration: Towards Sustained Growth and Higher Employment,” 4 May 1985. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/ summit/1985bonn/communique/trade.html, visited on 3 August 2005. 14 “Political Declaration on the 40th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War,” 3 May 1985. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/ summit/1985bonn/political.html, visited on 3 August 2005. 15 Bayne, Staying Together, 18. 16 “Naples Summit Communiqué,” 9 July 1994. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/1994naples/communique/introduction.html, visited on 27 July 2005. 17 Watanabe K¯oji, “Rondon samitto no seika to Nihon,” Sekai Keizai Hy¯oron 35, 10 (1991), 10. 18 “Naples Summit Communiqué,” 9 July 1994. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1994naples/communique/introduction.html, visited on 4 August 2005. 19 Bayne, Staying Together, 18. 20 Bayne, Staying Together, 18. 21 See Mikhail Savostiyanov, “Presentation at the Pre-G8 Summit academic conference University of Glasgow,” 30 June 2005. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/conferences/2005/conf/savostiyanov.html, visited on 27 July 2005. 22 Bayne, Staying Together, 18. Nicholas Bayne, “Overcoming Evil with Good: Impressions of the Gleneagles Summit, 6–8 July 2005,” 18 July 2005. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/evaluations/ 2005gleneagles/bayne2005–0718.html#assessment, visited on 27 July 2005. 2 Organization and Functioning 1 Robert D. Putnam, “Summit Sense,” Foreign Policy 55, Summer (1984), 80. 2 Despite accommodation within the other G8 meetings, Russia has little to contribute to the finance ministers’ discussion and continues to be excluded. 3 Nicholas Bayne, Staying Together: The G8 Summit Confronts the 21st Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 195.
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4 John Kirton and Janel Smith, “Summit Costs, 1995–2004,” 12 August 2003. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/factsheet/ factsheet_costs.html, visited on 2 August 2005. 5 Hugo Dobson, Japan and the G7/8, 1975–2002 (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004), 35–36. 6 Tatsuo Akaneya, “The View from Japan: Tasks for the G8 KyushuOkinawa Summit,” NIRA Review 7, 2 (2000), 12. 7 Peter I. Hajnal, The G7/G8 System: Evolution, Role and Documentation (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 94. 8 John J. Kirton, “Introduction: The Significance of the Seven-Power Summit,” in Peter I. Hajnal (ed.) The Seven-Power Summit: Documents from the Summit of Industrialized Countries, 1975–1989 (Millwood, New York: Kraus International Publications, 1989), xl-xli. 9 Kirton, “Introduction,” xli. 10 Quoted in Hajnal, The G7/G8 System, 75. 11 Eleonore Kokotsis, Keeping International Commitments: Compliance, Credibility and the G7, 1988–1995 (New York: Garland, 1999); Ella Kokotsis and Joseph P. Daniels, “G8 Summits and Compliance,” in Michael R. Hodges, John J. Kirton and Joseph P. Daniels (eds) The G8’s Role in the New Millennium (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 75–91. A detailed explanation of the methodology used in defining a “commitment” and calculating the level of compliance can be found at “Background on Compliance Assessments: Methodology.” Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/evaluations/methodology/g7c2.htm, visited on 25 March 2006. 12 John J. Kirton, Ella Kokotsis and Diana Juricevic, “Okinawa’s Promises Kept: The 2001 G8 Compliance Report,” in John J. Kirton and Junichi Takase (eds) New Directions in Global Political Governance: The G8 and International Order in the Twenty-first Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 272. 13 Matthew Tempest, “G8 leaders Agree U.S. $50bn Africa Package,” The Guardian 8 July 2005. Available online at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,1524304,00.html, visited on 5 August 2005. 14 Nicholas Bayne, “International Economic Relations after the Cold War,” Government and Opposition 29, 1 (1994), 20. 15 Risto E. J. Penttilä, The Role of the G8 in International Peace and Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 46–50, 91–5; Francesco Sisci, “China Goes Down with UN defeat,” On-line Asia Times 21 March 2003. Available online at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/EC21Ad01.html, visited on 22 March 2003. 16 Robert D. Putnam and Nicholas Bayne, Hanging Together: The SevenPower Summits (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 141. 17 John Hunt and Henry Owen, “Taking Stock of the Seven-Power Summits: Two Views,” International Affairs 60, 4 (1984), 659. 18 Richard Falk, On Humane Governance: Toward a New Global Politics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 216–17.
Notes 105 3 Perspectives of Member States 1 François Roberge, “French Foreign Policy and Seven-Power Summits,” Country Study No. 3 (University of Toronto: Centre for International Studies, May 1988), 3. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/ scholar/roberge1988/index.html, visited on 9 August 2005. 2 Phillipe Moreau Defarges, “The French Viewpoint on the Future of the G7,” The International Spectator 29, April/June (1994), 177–85. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/scholar/defarges1994/index.html, visited on 9 August 2005. 3 John J. Kirton, Ella Kokotsis and Diana Juricevic, “Okinawa’s Promises Kept: The 2001 G8 Compliance Report,” in John J. Kirton and Junichi Takase (eds) New Directions in Global Political Governance: The G8 and International Order in the Twenty-First Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 272. 4 Defarges, “The French Viewpoint.” 5 “Declaration on Human Rights,” 15 July 1989. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/1989paris/human.html, visited on 9 August 2005. 6 Cited in G8 Research Group, “G8 Reform: Expanding the Dialogue,” June 2005. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/evaluations/csed/ ed_050707.pdf, visited on 9 August 2005. 7 Nicholas Bayne, Staying Together: The G8 Summit Confronts the 21st Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 199. 8 Robert Hornung, “Sharing Economic Responsibility: The United States and the Seven-Power Summits,” Country Study No. 4 (University of Toronto: Centre for International Studies, May 1988), 67. 9 William Antholis, “Pragmatic Engagement or Photo Op: What Will the G8 Become?,” Washington Quarterly 24, 3 (2001), 220. 10 Kirton, Kokotsis and Juricevic, “Okinawa’s Promises Kept,” 272. 11 See “Response by the Presidency on Behalf of the G8 to the Jubilee 2000 Petition,” 16 May 1998. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/ summit/1998birmingham/2000.htm, visited on 9 August 2005. 12 G8 Research Group, “G8 Reform,” 48. 13 Jeffrey E. Garten, “Should This Man Lead the G8?,” Newsweek 25 April 2005. 14 Risto E. J. Penttilä, The Role of the G8 in International Peace and Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 54. 15 Kirton, Kokotsis and Juricevic, “Okinawa’s Promises Kept,” 272. 16 The sincerity of this position has been questioned and New Labour’s belief in neoliberalism and desire to break into new markets has been put forward as its chief motivating factor. See Mark Curtis, “Britain and the G8: A Champion of the World’s Poor?” in Gill Hubbard and David Miller (eds) Arguments Against G8 (London: Pluto Press, 2005), 44–56. 17 Penttilä, The Role of the G8 in International Peace and Security, 55. 18 Robert D. Putnam and Nicholas Bayne, Hanging Together: The SevenPower Summits (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 141. 19 Michael Hodges, “More Efficiency, Less Dignity: British Perspectives on the Future Role and Working of the G7,” The International Spectator 29,
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20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
32 33 34
35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47
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April/June, 141–59. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/scholar/ hodges1994/hod2.htm, visited on 10 August 2005. Cited in G8 Research Group, “G8 Reform,” 42. “Response by the Presidency on Behalf of the G8 to the Jubilee 2000 Petition.” The Japan Times, 2 June 1983, 1. René Albrecht-Carrié (ed.), The Concert of Europe (London: Macmillan, 1968), 12. Kirton, Kokotsis and Juricevic, “Okinawa’s Promises Kept,” 272. Cited in G8 Research Group, “G8 Reform,” 32. Hanns W. Maull, “Germany at the Summit,” The International Spectator 29, April/June (1994), 112–39. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/ scholar/maull1994/index.html, visited on 10 August 2005. “Political Declaration on the 40th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War.” Kirton, Kokotsis and Juricevic, “Okinawa’s Promises Kept,” 272. Penttilä, The Role of the G8 in International Peace and Security, 59. “Final Press Conference by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder,” 10 June 2005. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/ 2004seaisland/schroeder040610.html, visited on 10 August 2005. Yoshino Bunroku, “Oral History Interview Conducted by Tanaka Akihiko,” 30 June. Available online at: http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/ japan/yoshinoohinterview.htm (English), or: http://www.gwu.edu/ ~nsarchiv/japan/yoshino.pdf (Japanese), visited on 13 July 2005. See Hugo Dobson, Japan and the G7/8, 1975–2002 (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004). Ultimately a compromise was reached whereby Suharto met with US President Bill Clinton at a pre-summit meeting. By 1975, Japan had become the second largest contributor to the UN regular budget, a position it has maintained to the present day. See Glenn D. Hook et al., Japan’s International Relations: Politics, Economics and Security (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), 377–78. The Japan Times, 16 January 1979, 5. Kirton, Kokotsis and Juricevic, “Okinawa’s Promises Kept,” 272. See Dobson, Japan and the G7/8, 156–64. W. Blair Dimock, “The Benefits of Teamplay: Italy and the Seven Power Summits,” Country Study No. 5 (University of Toronto: Centre for International Studies, May 1988), 1–2. Penttilä, The Role of the G8 in International Peace and Security, 66–67. G8 Research Group, “G8 Reform,” 23. Cited in G8 Research Group, “G8 Reform,” 23 Penttilä, The Role of the G8 in International Peace and Security, 64. Kirton, Kokotsis and Juricevic, “Okinawa’s Promises Kept,” 272. John J. Kirton, “The Diplomacy of Concert: Canada, the G-7 and the Halifax Summit.” Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/scholar/ kirton199501/index.html, visited on 12 August 2005. The Japan Times, 28 June 2002, 5. The Japan Times, 28 June 2002, 5. G8 Research Group, “G8 Reform,” 8.
Notes 107 48 Cited in Heidi Ullrich and Alan Donnelly, “The Group of Eight and the European Union: The Evolving Partnership,” G8 Governance 5, November (1998). Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/governance/gov5/ index.html, visited on 11 August 2005. 49 Klemens Fischer, “The G7/8 and the European Union,” in John J. Kirton, Joseph P. Daniels and Andreas Freytag (eds) Guiding Global Order: G8 Governance in the Twenty-First Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), 129–30. 50 Penttilä, The Role of the G8 in International Peace and Security, 72–75. 51 “Declaration on East-West Relations,” 15 July 1989. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1989paris/east.html, visited on 11 August 2005. 52 For an overview of the G8’s evolving relations with China, see John J. Kirton, “The G7/8 and China: Toward a Closer Relationship,” in Kirton, Daniels and Freytag, Guiding Global Governance, 189–222. 53 For a more detailed discussion, see John J. Kirton, “The G20: Representativeness, Effectiveness, and Leadership in Global Governance,” in Kirton, Daniels and Freytag, Guiding Global Governance, 143–72. 54 “G7 Statement,” 18 June 1999. Available online at: http://www.g7. utoronto.ca/summit/1999koln/g7statement_june18.htm, visited on 11 August 2005. 4 Achievements and Failures 1 Nicholas Bayne, Staying Together: The G8 Summit Confronts the 21st Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 20. 2 Bayne, Staying Together, 21. 3 “Declaration,” 23 June 1980. Available online at: http://www.g8. utoronto.ca/summit/1980venice/communique/index.html, visited on 31 August 2005. 4 “The Bonn Economic Declaration: Towards Sustained Growth and Higher Employment,” 4 May 1985. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/ summit/1985bonn/communique/trade.html, visited on 3 August 2005. 5 “Response by the Presidency on Behalf of the G8 to the Jubilee 2000 Petition,” 16 May 1998. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/ summit/1998birmingham/2000.htm, visited on 9 August 2005. 6 The Guardian, 12 July 2005. 7 Nicholas Bayne, “Overcoming Evil with Good: Impressions of the Gleneagles Summit, 6–8 July 2005,” 18 July 2005. Available online at: http:// www.g8.utoronto.ca/evaluations/2005gleneagles/bayne2005–718.html# assessment, visited on 27 July 2005. 8 Risto E. J. Penttilä, The Role of the G8 in International Peace and Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 35. 9 “Declaration of Rambouillet,” 17 November 1975. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/1975rambouillet/communique.html, visited on 3 August 2005. 10 “Chairman’s Summary of Political Issues,” 21 July 1981. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1981ottawa/chairman.html, visited on 30 August 2005. 11 “Political Declaration on the 40th Anniversary of the End of the Second World War.”
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12 “Naples Summit Communiqué,” 9 July 1994. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/1994naples/communique/introdution.ht ml, visited on 27 July 2005. 13 “Naples Summit Communiqué.” 14 Penttilä, The Role of the G8 in International Peace and Security, 37. 15 David M. Malone, “The G8 and Conflict Prevention: From Promise to Practice,” in John J. Kirton and Radoslava N. Stefanova (eds) The G8, the United Nations, and Conflict Prevention (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 43. 16 “Statement on Air Hijacking,” 17 July 1978. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1978bonn/hijacking.html, visited on 30 August 2005. 17 “Statement on the Taking of Diplomatic Hostages,” 22 June 1980. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1980venice/hostage. html, visited on 30 August 2005. 18 “Statement on International Terrorism,” 5 May 1986. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1986tokyo/terrorism.html, visited on 30 August 2005. 19 “The Kananaskis Chair’s Summary,” 27 June 2002. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/2002kananaskis/summary.html, visited on 30 August 2005. 20 “Building International Political Will and Capacity to Combat Terrorism – a G8 Action Plan,” 2 June 2005. Available online at: http://www.g7. utoronto.ca/summit/2003evian/will_action_en.html, visited on 30 August 2005. 21 Bayne, Staying Together, 178. 22 “Political Declaration,” 29 May 1983. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/1983williamsburg/security.html, visited on 30 August 2005. 23 “Political Statement – Regional Issues,” 15 May 1998. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1998birmingham/regional.htm, visited on 30 August 2005. 24 Penttilä, The Role of the G8 in International Peace and Security, 44–46. 25 “G8 Statement on Regional Issues,” 20 June 1999. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1999koln/regional.htm, visited on 30 August 2005. 26 “The Bonn Economic Declaration: Towards Sustained Growth and Higher Employment.” 27 “Economic Declaration,” 16 July 1989. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/1989paris/communique/index.html, visited on 16 August 2005. 28 “Chair’s Summary,” 8 July 2005. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/2005gleneagles/summary.html, visited on 16 August 2005. 29 “Chairman’s Statement on AIDS,” 10 June 1987. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/1987venice/aids.html, visited on 16 August 2005. 30 “Fact Sheet: Donations to Global AIDS and Health Fund,” 22 July 2001. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/2001genoa/factsheet_health_2001.html, visited on 16 August 2005.
Notes 109 31 “Okinawa Charter on Global Information Society,” 22 July 2005. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/2000okinawa/gis.htm, visited on 16 August 2005. 32 “Digital Opportunities for All: Meeting the Challenge. Report of the Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force) including a Proposal for a Genoa Plan of Action,” 11 May 2001. Available online at: http://www.g7. utoronto.ca/summit/2001genoa/dotforce1.html, visited on 16 August 2005. 3 “Issue Objectives for the Genoa Summit Meeting 2001: DOT force,” June 2001. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/2001genoa/ objectives/dotforce.html, visited on 16 August 2005. 34 “DOT Force Report Card: Digital Opportunities for All,” June 2001. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/2002kananaskis/ dotforce_reportcard.pdf, visited on 16 August 2005. 35 “Venice Economic Declaration,” 10 June 1987. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/summit/1987venice/communique/index.html, visited on 16 August 2005. 36 “Cologne Charter: Aims and Ambitions for Lifelong Learning,” 18 June 1999. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/summit/1999koln/ charter.htm, visited on 16 August 2005. 37 Bayne, Staying Together, 41. 5 Criticisms and Challenges 1 G8 Research Group, “G8 Reform: Expanding the Dialogue,” June 2005, 3. Available online at: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca/evaluations/csed/ed_050707. pdf, visited on 9 August 2005. 2 John J. Kirton, “Explaining G8 Effectiveness,” in Michael R. Hodges, John J. Kirton and Joseph P. Daniels (eds) The G8’s Role in the New Millennium (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 45. 3 Quoted in Heikki Patomäki, “Good Governance of the World Economy,” Alternatives 24, 1 (1999), 132. 4 George Monbiot, The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order (London: Flamingo, 2003), 84. 5 John J. Kirton, “Introduction: The Significance of the Seven-Power Summit,” in Peter I. Hajnal (ed.) The Seven-Power Summit: Documents from the Summit of Industrialized Countries, 1975–1989 (Millwood, New York: Kraus International Publications, 1989), xxxvi. 6 James N. Rosenau, “Governance in the Twenty-First Century,” Global Governance 1, 1 (1995), 17. 7 Peter I. Hajnal, “Partners or Adversaries? The G7/8 Encounters Civil Society,” in John J. Kirton and Junichi Takase (eds) New Directions in Global Political Governance: The G8 and International Order in the TwentyFirst Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 209–22. 8 This following discussion draws heavily upon and updates Hajnal, “Partners or Adversaries?”; Peter I. Hajnal, “Civil Society Encounters the G7/8,” in Peter I. Hajnal (ed.) Civil Society in the Information Age (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 215–42. 9 See its official webpages at: http://www.jubileedebtcampaign.org.uk 10 Cited in Hajnal, “Partners or Adversaries?,” 214. 11 Cited in Hajnal, “Partners or Adversaries?,” 215.
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12 MTV News (2005) “What is the G8, anyway?,” 28 June. Available online at: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1504853/20050628/index.jhtml, visited on 3 September 2005. 13 Nicholas Bayne, Staying Together: The G8 Summit Confronts the 21st Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 227. 14 Nogami Yoshiji, “Okinawa samitto no seika to Nihon,” Sekai Keizai Hy¯oron 44, 10 (2000), 8–9. 15 Private Eye, 8–21 July 2005, 5. 16 W. R. Smyser, “Goodbye, G7,” Washington Quarterly 16, 1 (1993), 23. 17 See the WEF’s homepage: http://www.weforum.org 18 G8 Research Group, “G8 Reform: Expanding the Dialogue,” 6. See also John J. Kirton, “Toward Multilateral Reform: the G20’s contribution,” in John English, Ramesh Thakur and Andrew F. Cooper (eds) Reforming from the Top: A Leaders’ 20 Summit (New York: UNU Press, 2005), 141– 68. 19 Mathias Koenig-Archibugi, “Mapping Global Governance,” in David Held and Anthony McGrew (eds) Governing Globalization: Power Authority and Global Governance (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2002), 46–69. 20 Risto E. J. Penttilä, The Role of the G8 in International Peace and Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 46–50, 91–95; Francesco Sisci, “China goes down with UN Defeat,” On-line Asia Times 21 March 2003. Available on-line at: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/EC21Ad01. html, visited on 22 March 2003. 21 Walter Bagehot (1963) The English Constitution (London: Oxford University Press), xviii. Many thanks to Andrew Gamble who first pointed out this similarity. 22 Robert D. Putnam, “Summit sense,” Foreign Policy 55, Summer (1984), 73. 23 John G. Ikenberry, “Salvaging the G7,” Foreign Affairs 72, 2 (1993), 132. 24 The Japan Times, 29 June 1997, 6. 25 MTV News, “What is the G8, anyway?” 26 Gill Hubbard and David Miller, “Introduction: Barbarism Inc.,” in Gill Hubbard and David Miller (eds) Arguments Against G8 (London: Pluto Press, 2005), 7. 27 Hubbard and Miller, “Introduction: Barbarism Inc.,” 3. 28 Michael R. Hodges, “The G8 and the New Political Economy,” in Hodges, Kirton and Daniels, The G8’s Role in the New Millennium, 72. 29 Robert D. Putnam and Nicholas Bayne, Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the the Seven-Power Summits (London: Sage, 1987), 14. 6 Future Directions 1 Nicholas Bayne, Staying Together: The G8 Summit Confronts the 21st Century (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005), 199–200. 2 Bayne, Staying Together, 216–19. 3 John J. Kirton and Ella Kokotsis, “Impressions of the G8 Evian Summit,” 3 June 2003. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/ 2003evian/assess_kirton_kokotsis.html, visited on 4 September 2005. 4 Nicholas Bayne, “Impressions of the Evian summit, June 1–3, 2003.” Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/evaluations/2003evian/ assess_bayne030603.html, visited on 4 September 2005.
Notes 111 5 The Guardian, 13 July 2005. 6 For a more detailed and thematic discussion of this issue, see Michele Fratianni, Paolo Savona, Alan M. Rugman and John J. Kirton (eds) New Perspectives on Global Governance: Why America Needs the G8 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). 7 Developments surrounding the first Russian summit can be followed at the official St Petersburg Summit homepage: http://en.g8russia.ru. 8 David Miller and Gill Hubbard, “Conclusion: Naming the Problem,” in Gill Hubbard and David Miller (eds) Arguments Against G8 (London: Pluto Press, 2005), 230. 9 Peter Teslenko, “Press Conference on Cooperation between Civil Society and the Group of Eight during Russia’s Presidency,” 20 December 2005. Available online at: http://www.g7.utoronto.ca/whatsnew/cs051220.html, visited on 21 December 2005. Civil 8’s webpages can be found at http://en.civilg8.ru.
Select Bibliography and Electronic Resources
Baker, Andrew (2006) The Group of Seven: Finance Ministries, Central Banks and Global Financial Governance (London: Routledge). A detailed research monograph informed by theories of international political economy, which consequently may not be so user-friendly to undergraduate students. Specifically, the book explores critically the role of the meetings of the G7 finance ministers – “the most important transgovernmental coalition of our day” – and their influence upon global financial governance. Bayne, Nicholas (2000) Hanging in There: The G7 and G8 Summit in Maturity and Renewal (Aldershot: Ashgate). A core point of reference for understanding the summit process and developments from its origins through to the 1999 Cologne Summit by one of the longest-serving observers of the summit. —— (2005) Staying Together: The G8 Summit Confronts the 21st Century (Aldershot: Ashgate). Continuing the story from Hanging in There, Bayne explores the G8 summit process from the 1998 Birmingham Summit to the 2005 Gleneagles Summit; an up-to-date description and analysis of the most recent developments in summitry. Cohn, Theodore H. (2002) Governing Global Trade: International Institutions in Conflict and Convergence (Aldershot: Ashgate). With the goal of understanding the nuances of the global trade regime, this single-authored volume expands the traditional analysis beyond the GATT/WTO to include a range of other organizations, institutions and groupings, including the G7/8. Dobson, Hugo (2004) Japan and the G7/8, 1975–2002 (London: RoutledgeCurzon). An analysis of Japan’s role in the G7/8 summit and the position of the summit in Japan’s foreign policy based on numerous interviews and English and Japanese language sources. English, John, Thakur, Ramesh and Cooper, Andrew F. (eds) (2005) Reforming from the Top: A Leaders’ 20 Summit (New York: UNU Press). An edited volume that explores the concept of the L20, arguing with a number of caveats that the creation of such an institution would be both timely and beneficial to the architecture of global governance. Fratianni, Michele, Savona, Paolo and Kirton, John J. (eds) (2002) Governing Global Finance: New Challenges, G7 and IMF Contributions (Aldershot: Ashgate). Although published in the Global Finance series and not the G8 and Global Governance series, the 2001 Genoa Summit was the catalyst for
Select Bibliography and Electronic Resources 113 this volume that investigates the G8’s role in the creation of a new international financial architecture after a series of global shocks and its coordinating role with long-standing international institutions in this undertaking. Fratianni, Michele, Kirton, John J., Rugman, Alan M. and Savona, Paolo (eds) (2005) New Perspectives on Global Governance: Why America Needs the G8 (Aldershot: Ashgate). Published after the 2004 Sea Island Summit, this collection of essays focusses upon the continued relevance of the G8 and its potential importance to the US, in addition to the role of Russia and the issues of trade and terrorism. G8 Information Centre homepage: http://www.g8.utoronto.ca. Maintained by the G8 Research Group at Toronto University, this is an invaluable source of information for the novice and the expert alike. Everything you could ever wish to know about the G8 in one place. Hajnal, Peter I. (ed.) (1989) The Seven-Power Summit: Documents from the Summit of Industrialized Countries, 1975–1989 (Millwood, New York: Kraus International Publications). Before the G8 Information Centre’s homepage became the central resource of G8 documentation (see above), this volume provided a useful reference point for summit delegations and documentation from 1975 to 1988, with an introduction by John Kirton. Hajnal, Peter I. (1999) The G7/G8 System: Evolution, Role and Documentation (Aldershot: Ashgate). An introductory text that makes sense of the G7/8 summit, its history, membership, structure and copious documentation. Hodges, Michael R., Kirton, John J. and Daniels, Joseph P. (eds) (1999) The G8’s Role in the New Millennium (Aldershot: Ashgate). One of the earliest publications in Ashgate’s G8 and Global Governance series. The diverse chapters provide an exploration of the G8’s effectiveness at a crucial period in its history after the reforms of the 1998 Birmingham Summit. Hubbard, Gill and Miller, David (eds) (2005) Arguments Against the G8 (London: Pluto Press). A collection of essays by leading activists, politicians and academics published in the run-up to the 2005 Gleneagles Summit. Although inaccurate in places, alongside Jonathan Neale’s contribution (see below) it still provides a provocative example of the anti-G8 literature. Kaiser, Karl, Kirton, John J. and Daniels, Joseph P. (eds) (2000) Shaping a New International Financial System: Challenges of Governance in a Globalizing World (Aldershot: Ashgate). Focussing upon international finance after the global crises of the 1990s, the chapters in this volume highlight the major obstacles to creating a new financial architecture and the role of the G7/8 in this process. Kirton, John J. and Stefanova, Radoslava N. (eds) (2004) The G8, United Nations, and Conflict Prevention (Aldershot: Ashgate). Especially (but not exclusively) after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the “war on terror,” the G8’s agenda has shifted towards security issues. This edited volume examines the G8’s contribution to conflict prevention in collaboration with international organizations and institutions – a role that can be expected to expand in the future. Kirton, John J. and Takase, Junichi (eds) (2002) New Directions in Global Political Governance: The G8 and International Order in the Twenty-First Century (Aldershot: Ashgate). The eighth contribution to the G8 and Global
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Governance series, this edited volume was a product of the 2000 Okinawa Summit and sheds light on the impact of globalization in its broadest sense and highlights Japan’s role as host of the summit and the domestic reaction. Kirton, John J. and Von Furstenberg, George M. (eds) (2001) New Directions in Global Economic Governance: Managing Globalisation in the Twenty-First Century (Aldershot: Ashgate). In keeping with this series’ tradition of using the annual summit as a catalyst, this edited volume was the product of various conferences held around the time of the 2000 Okinawa Summit and focuses upon changes in the global economic order prevailing at that time, such as the fall-out from the Asian financial crisis and continuing trade liberalization negotiations. Kirton, John J., Daniels, Joseph P. and Freytag, Andreas (eds) (2001) Guiding Global Order: G8 Governance in the Twenty-First Century (Aldershot: Ashgate). A product of the 1999 Cologne Summit, this collection of essays focusses upon the core economic issues at the heart of the G8’s work and explores the institutions it has spawned and its relations with a range of other institutions and non-G8 members. Kokotsis, Eleonore (1999) Keeping International Commitments: Compliance, Credibility and the G7, 1988–1995 (New York: Garland). Covering the summits from 1989 to 1995, this detailed volume (based on the author’s doctoral thesis) explores the level of summiteers’ commitment to G7 pledges. Neale, Jonathan (2002) You are G8, We are 6 Billion: The Truth Behind the Genoa Protests (London: Vision). An anti-capitalist campaigner’s account of the protests and policing at the 2001 Genoa Summit that led to the death of an Italian protester, Carlo Giuliani. Penttilä, Risto E. J. (2003) The Role of the G8 in International Peace and Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press). The only volume in the Adelphi Paper series published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Institute for Strategic Studies dedicated to the G8. The focus is placed upon the G8’s contribution to international security – an issue that was originally outside of its remit but was soon added to its agenda. Putnam, Robert D. and Bayne, Nicholas (1984) Hanging Together: The SevenPower Summits (Cambridge: Harvard University Press). Authored by a US political scientist and a former UK diplomat, this classic book was for a long time (until the Ashgate G8 and Global Governance Series) the main text for exploring the role of the G8 in fostering international cooperation in an interdependent world. —— (1987) Hanging Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits (London: Sage). This revised edition was published only three years after the publication of the original work and updates the developments and refines the theoretical implications introduced in the first edition.
Index
Boxed text is shown by italic page numbers. Main treatments are indicated by bold. ad hoc meetings 25 Afghanistan, Soviet invasion of 5, 6 Africa Action Plan 14 Africa: assistance for 13–14; debt relief 15, 22, 63–5; development partnership 54; outreach policy 83–4 Africa Group 96 Africa Personal Representatives 96 al-Qaeda 12 Annan, Kofi 94 anti-globalization protests 30 Argentina 59 assessment 16 Assistance for Africa 13 Association of Southeast Asian Nations 35 Attali, Jacques 39 attendance 18–26 attendance overlap 23–4 Australia 57, 59 Bagehot, Walter 89 Baker, James 61 Balladur, Edouard 39–40 Bayne, Nicholas: first cycle assessment 7; second cycle assessment 9; third cycle assessment 12; fourth cycle assessment 14; fifth cycle assessment 16; effectiveness 91; first summit 2–3; future approach 34; leadership 96; media 86
beer 26 Berlusconi, Silvio 19, 53, 55 bioethics 78 Birmingham Summit (1998): assessment 43; crime prevention 78; debt relief 64; reforms 13, 22, 41–2, 44– 5; Russian goals 47; security issues 74–5; unemployment issues 79 Blair, Tony: agendas 43–4; attendance 98; communiqués 34; debt relief 63–4; Jubilee 2000 response 32; outreach policy 45; reforms 13, 41, 44, 90; separation of ministers’ meetings 22, 25 Blunkett, David 30 Bonn Summit (1978): assessment 49; Declaration on Highjacking 5, 6; leaders 60 Bonn Summit (1985): assessment 8, 49; Economic Declaration 8, 62; environmental issues 76; political issues 66–7; terrorism 69; WWII anniversary 48 Bono 45, 63, 90 Brady Plan 63 Brazil 58, 59 “Break the Chains of Debt” 84 Brown, Gordon 45 Bush, George H. W. 41 Bush, George W.: agendas 42; attendance 98; outreach policy 15;
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Index
promotion of democracy 66; protectionism 22; sherpas 41; unilateralism 12 Business and Industry Advisory Committee 35 Cambodian conflict 75 Campbell, Kim 54 Canada 54–5; agendas 54–5; assessment 54; attendance 54; compliance 54; as member xviii, 54 Carter, Jimmy 41 Central Europe, assistance for 12 chairman’s statements 32–3 Charter on Lifelong Learning 78 Chernobyl nuclear accident 9 China: attendance 58; attitudes after Tianamen Square 10; attitudes of 58; first dialogue meeting 15; future membership xviii, 98; G20 59; outreach policy 15; support for 49–50, 53 Chirac, Jacques 22, 25, 38, 58, 97 Chrétien, Jean 54, 90–1, 97 Civil G8 2006 100 civil society: engagement with 84; first mentioned 10; future directions 99–100; outreach policy and 25, 83 climate change 76 Clinton, Bill 41 Cold War: end of 9, 66–7; re-emergence of 4 Cologne Summit (1999): assessment 49; Cologne Debt Initiative 64, 65; costs 30; debt relief 13, 48; education issues 78; finance ministers 59; Kosovo conflict 75– 6 communiqués 31–2 compliance: Canada 33–4, 54; France 38–9; Germany 33, 48–9; Italy 34; Japan 52; mechanisms of 33–4, 91; Russia 39, 47; United Kingdom 33–4, 43; USA 34, 41 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty 13 Concert of Europe 2, 46 concerts 26, 29
costs 30, 92–3 Counter-Terrorism Action Group 71, 73 crime prevention 78 cycles of summitry 1; see also first cycle of summitry etc dates and venues 3–4 Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa 90 debt relief 9, 15, 45, 63–5, 84 declarations 32–3 delegation 96 Delors, Jacques 56, 57 democracy, strengthening 5 Denver Summit (1997) 13, 40, 46, 75 Dhahran military base 12 Digital Opportunities Taskforce (DOT force) 14 diseases 77 documentation 31–4 Doha Round 53 drugs 77 East Asian financial crisis 12 East–West tensions 4, 8–9 East–West trade 9 economic issues: declarations 31; history of 4–6; locomotive theory 6, 50, 61; success and failures 60–5 Education for All 79 education issues 15, 29, 78–9 education summit: see Kananaskis Summit (2002) EEC Commission 56 effectiveness 81, 89–93 employment issues 79 employment ministers’ meetings 25 energy issues 15 energy ministers’ meetings 25 The English Constitution (Bagehot) 89 environment ministers’ meetings 25, 76 environmental issues 76 EU 55–7 EU Constitution 95 euromissiles 9 European Council 56, 61 Evian Summit (2003): bridgebuilding 15; Iraq War 97; outreach policy 40, 58; terrorism 71, 73
Index exchange rate stability 4 expectations 89–90 families 26 festivities 26 fifth cycle of summitry 14–17, 16 finance ministers: attendance discontinued 19, 22; as leaders 60–1 finance ministers’ meetings: frequency of 25, 36; Group of 20 55; non-G8 members 45; Russian exclusion 47; set up 9 Financial Action Task Force 73 first cycle of summitry 4–7, 16 fora xvii Ford, Gerald 5, 22, 40 foreign ministers, attendance discontinued 22 foreign ministers’ meetings 25, 36, 96 fourth cycle of summitry 12–14, 16 France 37–40; assessment 38; attendance 19, 38; compliance 38–9 French Revolution 39–40 future membership 98–9 G4 2 G5 2, 9, 61 G6 xviii, 91 G7, first meeting xviii G8, first mentioned 13 G8 Research Group 55 G9 49–50, 58, 98–9 G10 53 G20 55, 58–9, 88 G24 10, 36, 67 Geldof, Bob 45, 63 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) 4, 35, 61–3 Genoa Summit (2001): assessment 53; costs 30; education issues 78– 9; ICT 77; outreach policy 83; protests 14, 30; terrorism 73–4 Germany 48–50; attendance 19, 48; compliance 48–9; great power status 48 Giscard d’Estaing, Valéry xviii, 38, 39, 48, 57 glastnost 46
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Gleneagles Summit (2005): agendas 44; assessment 43; debt relief 15, 64–5; environmental issues 76; health issues 77; media 87; solidarity 97; terrorism 74; US attitudes 41; venue 31; working schedule 27–9 Global AIDS and Health Fund 77 global governance: leadership 94–6; overlap 81, 87–9; position in 34–6; US attitudes 40 Global Information Society 77 globalization: anti-globalization protests 30; challenges of 67–8; first mentioned 10 goals 96–7 Gorbachev, Mikhail 7, 10–11, 39, 46 grading system 16 great power status 48 Group of Twenty Leaders (L20) 88 Guadeloupe meeting (1979) 39, 43, 51, 74 Gulf War (1990–91) 34 Hajnal, Peter 84 Halifax Summit (1995): communiqué 32; global governance 35; reforms 11–12, 55; tourism 30 Harper, Stephen 98 Hashimoto Ryu¯taro¯ 75, 77 health issues 76–7 health ministers’ meetings 25 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries 64 hegemony 40 highjacking 5, 6, 69 Highly Indebted Poor Countries programme 13, 96 hijacking 5 HIV/AIDS 9, 77 Hodges, Michael xvii, 90 Home and Justice Ministers’ meetings 30 hostage taking 69–70 hotels 29 Houston Summit (1990): agendas 10; assessment 40; communiqué 31–2; trade negotiations 63 Hu Jintao 58 Human Frontiers Science Programme 50, 78
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ICT 14, 77–8 IMF reform 35 India: future membership 58, 98; G20 59; nuclear weapons tests 74–5; support for 53 Indonesia 51, 57 industrialization, development and xvii infectious diseases 15 informality 26 institutions: explanation of xvii; overlap 81, 87–9; review of 11–12 intellectual property rights 78 International Atomic Agency 11 International Chamber of Commerce 35 Iraq War (2003) 34, 94, 97 Italy 52–4; agendas 53; assessment 53; attendance 19, 53 Japan 50–2; agendas 50; assessment 52; attendance 19, 51–2; attitude to China 58; compliance 52 Japanese Communist and Anarchist groups 30 Jenkins, Roy 6 Jubilee 2000 13–14, 22, 32, 63–4, 84–5 Kananaskis Summit (2002): agendas 12; costs 30; education issues 78– 9; ICT 77; media 87; outreach policy 83; reforms 55, 90–1; Russia and 46, 55; terrorism 14, 70; venue 31 Kim Il-Sung 11 Kissinger, Henry 2, 40 Kohl, Helmut 19, 48, 76, 77 Koizumi, Junichiro ¯ 19, 50, 52, 98 Korea (DPRK) 11, 75 Kosovo conflict (1999) 34, 75–6, 92 Kyoto Protocol 76 L20 88, 100 labor issues 79 labor ministers’ meetings 25 Lamy, Pascal 56 leaders 18–26; attendance 19–22 leaders-only summits 13, 22 leadership 94–6 legitimacy 81–7
length of summits 26, 55 Live 8 2005 32, 65, 86 locomotive theory 6, 50, 61 London Summit (1977): agendas 5; assessment 43; leaders 60; trade negotiations 62 London Summit (1984): agendas 8; assessment 43; health issues 77 London Summit (1991): assessment 43; GATT 63; Soviet Union 11 London terrorist attacks 15, 74 Louvre Accord 61 Lyon Group 36, 78, 92 Lyon Summit (1996): agendas 39; crime prevention 78; reforms 13 Major, John 44, 49, 87 Make Poverty History 65, 86, 89 Martin, Paul 14, 55 media 25–6, 86–7, 89 membership criteria 1, 57 Merkel, Angela 49, 98 Mexico 59, 63 Miki, Takeo 51 Millennium Development Goals 79 Mitterrand, François 19, 38, 39 Miyazawa Plan 63 Monbiot, George 82 multilateralism, as principle 48 Munich Summit (1992) 11, 44 Nakasone, Yasuhiro 7, 8, 19, 50, 52 Naples Summit (1994): global governance 11, 35; globalization 10, 67– 8; outreach policy 53 Napoleonic Wars 2 new members 57–9 New Partnership for Africa’s Development 54 NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) 10, 64, 86, 90, 100 non-G8 members: inclusion of 25, 40, 57, 83–4; Italian attitudes 53– 4; US attitudes 42 Northern Territories dispute 50 Norton, Richard 65 Nuclear Safety and Security Summit (1996) 46 nuclear testing ban 13 nuclear weapons 74–5
Index Obuchi, Keizo¯ 58 OECD 35 oil: crises 5, 61–2; import targets 6; oil-for-food 94–95 Okinawa Summit (2000): China and 51; civil society 85–6, 99–100; costs 30; health issues 77; ICT 77; infectious diseases 15; media 26, 87; outreach policy 58, 83; venue 29 Organization of American States 35 Ottawa Summit (1981) 6, 54, 66 outreach policy: China and 15; first introduced 13; future directions 99–100; US attitudes 42 overlap 81, 87–9 Pakistan 75 Paris Summit (1989): agendas 10, 39; environmental issues 76; human rights declaration 39; tourism 29 participants 18–26; attendance overlap 23–4 Penttilä, Risto 68–9 perestroika 46 photo opportunities 89 piracy 78 Plaza Accord 61 pledges 33–4 “Poland and Hungary: Aid for Restructuring of the Economies” 57 policing 30 political issues 65–8 post-industrialization xvii post-summit developments 34–6 powerful countries, most xvii pre-history 2–3 preparations for summits 26–31 press conferences 87 Prodi, Romano 98 protests 30–1, 84 Puerto Rico protests 30 Putnam, Robert D. 91 Quad 6, 25, 35, 62 Rambouillet Summit (1975): agendas 5, 39; Canada and 54; communiqué 31; Declaration 5, 65–6;
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global governance 35; origins of 2–3; trade negotiations 62 Reagan, Ronald 7, 41 recession theory 50 refugees 74 relevance 100–1 richest countries xvii riots 30 Rosenau, James 83 Russia 46–47; assistance for 11, 67; authoritarianism 100; compliance 39, 47; formal integration 14; G20 59; joins xviii; richest countries and xvii; status of 47, 99; US attitudes 42 San Juan Summit (1976): assessment 5, 7, 40; protests 30; “tailwind” 22 Saudi Arabia 59 schedules 26 Schmidt, Helmut xviii, 38, 48 Schröder, Gerhard 13, 22, 48, 49, 64 Sea Island Summit (2004): agendas 42; assessment 40; communiqué 32; Middle East 96; non-G8 members 40; outreach policy 15; promotion of democracy 66; venue 31 Seattle protests 30 second cycle of summitry 7–9, 16 security issues: French concerns 39; protests 30–1; success and failures 68–76 September 11 terrorist attacks 70 sherpas 5, 25 Short, Clare 64 social issues 76–9 solidarity 96–8 South Africa 58, 59 South Korea 59 Southeast Asia 50–1 Soviet Union: assistance for 10–11; attitudes of 46; collapse of 9–10; request participation 10 St Petersburg Summit (2006) 15, 46, 47, 97–8 Sting 32 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks 74 success and failures of summits 16 Suharto 11, 51, 57
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Summit of the Eight 46 surveillance 9 tailwind 22 Teheran embassy 5 terrorism: anti-Us attacks 12; Declaration on Highjacking 6; discussions about 5, 15–16; effectiveness 92; financing of 73; measures to counteract 9, 31, 69– 74, 71–3 Thatcher, Margaret 7, 19, 43, 77 third cycle of summitry 9–12, 16 Tianamen Square massacre 10 Tokyo Round 62 Tokyo Summit (1979) 6, 30, 57, 61 Tokyo Summit (1986) 8–9, 70 Tokyo Summit (1993) 11, 51, 57, 63 Toronto Summit (1988) 9 Trade Ministers’ Quadrilateral 6, 25, 35, 62 trade negotiations 62, 91 Transnational Organized Crime 78 transport security 70 Treaty of Rome (1957) 56 Turkey 59, 95 unemployment issues 79 United Kingdom 42–5; assessment 43; attendance 19, 43–4; compliance 43; debt relief 63–4; non-G8 members 45; sherpas 44 United Nations: budget 92; call for reform 34–5; oil-for-food 94–5; overlap 88–9
United Nations Security Council 34– 5, 36, 51, 81 United States Trade Representative (USTR) 6 Uruguay Round 49, 62–3, 79–80 USA 40–2; attendance 19; compliance 41; missile deployment in Europe 74; oil consumption 61; sherpas 41; solidarity 97 Venice Summit (1980): oil consumption 6, 62; political issues 66; secret meetings 43; security issues 53; terrorism 69–70 Venice Summit (1987) 9, 53, 77, 78 venues 23–4, 29–30, 91 Versailles Summit (1982) 8, 39 Warsaw Pact countries 36 Wilkinson, Rorden xviii Williamsburg Summit (1983): assessment 40; debt relief 63; Declaration 8, 74; security issues 74 Wilson, Harold 35, 44, 87 WMD 14, 70 World Bank, reform of 35 World Economic Forum (WEF) 87–8 A World Restored (Kissinger) 2 World Trade Organization 35, 92–3 World Trade Organization protests 30 World War Two anniversary 8, 66–7 Yeltsin, Boris 11, 13, 46 Yoshino, Bunroku 50–1
