THE G8 SHOULD EVOLVE
06.9.07 - Leído 61 veces. Enviar esta notaComment by Peter Sain ley Berry*
The last 30 years have seen a dramatic increase in issues that are global in scope. Besides tackling problems such as climate change, the next G8 presidency ought to think about how the body should evolve, writes Peter Sain ley Berry.
At the time of writing it is not clear what the results of this year’s G8 summit will be. Or even whether there will be any worthwhile results at all, commensurate with the expense and the expectation generated by such events. Given that decisions can be taken at any time do these summit occasions do any good?.
In these days of video-conferencing and modern communications is there actually any need to meet “face to face” for a few short hours? Given all the public pressures and limitations on leaders, does a group meeting, such as the one now taking place in Heiligendamm, improve collective decision-making?
Indeed it may not. The evidence suggests that the G8 became rather carried away two years ago at the G8 summit in Gleneagles. Whether it was the result of Tony Blair’s charm offensive, the glories of the Scottish countryside or the popular legions wielded by Messrs Geldorf and Bono, the G8 made a series of promises in relation to Africa and poor nations generally about which they now seem almost embarrassed to be reminded.
One was to double development aid by 2010; while levels have risen we are not on track to reach this target. Moreover, the aid budgets of France and Italy have actually been cut. Pressure to renew the pledge has been resisted. Another promise to help 10 million AIDS victims is also under pressure. The Doha trade round, whose prime purpose was to help poor nations develop, has stalled over rich country subsidies.
The popular perception is that when governments set targets they will meet them; this is not always the case. Evidence from United Nations summits suggests that the greater the public pressures the more likelihood there is that targets and delivery will vary. Such pressures are increased during global summits such as the G8 that carry such high expectations.
As leaders deliberate on issues such as climate change or poverty in Africa we can catch a whiff of nascent global government. Hopes are high. Among the poor nations the cry goes up “richesse oblige.” But sadly, beyond economic self-interest there appears little sense of obligation on offer at the G8.
The world lacks an enforcement mechanism to ensure that pledges are redeemed. The concept of richesse oblige is apt to take second place against a popular clamour for rising domestic standards. How then can we make leaders hold to their promises?
GLOBAL POWER VACUUM
By coincidence I listened to Lord (Paddy) Ashdown - the former Bosnia High Representative - speaking last week at the Hay Festival about global governance. He suggested that a power vacuum exists on the global stage despite it having become the key forum for the major issues of our time.
When the G8 (as it then wasn’t) first met in 1975, the word “globalisation” hadn’t yet entered the mainstream political vocabulary. That alone is an indication of how far we have travelled in the intervening 32 years. Now all our problems seem to have a global origin.
Climate change and global pollution are clearly obvious and identified - but then there are also the problems of global poverty, global hunger, migration and global pandemics. Besides a global economy we have the problems of trade, of international crime and terrorism, of conflicting religious and secular philosophies, of human rights, global communications, international law and of managing the interventions that we make through the United Nations.
Lord Ashdown made the point that whereas the traditional national stage was usually reasonably-well policed within a framework of law, the international stage was, in effect, largely lawless. A jungle without political institutions of the necessary power - a kind of frontier zone where armed force, economic power and the suicide bomber vie with each other over an increasingly devastated terrain.
In Europe we have had the collective sense to realise that the European space can best be managed by individual nations co-operating under the framework of a rule of law. Yet that simple idea is far from commanding universal support, even in Europe.
If we can’t even manage to sell this simple idea within the European continent, how much harder will it be to sell it globally? We may know (or believe we know) how to manage a continent - but elsewhere the idea of nations coming together voluntarily, pooling sovereignty and moving forward together is still in its infancy. The hesitant African Union is often mocked, but that benighted continent is now surely moving down the only path that will lead it out of poverty, conflict and corruption.
NEW DEBATE NEEDED
As yet there is little debate about how to manage this lawless international space - or how to create powerful institutions, respected and valued. Some will argue that this should be the job of the United Nations, though others will deny the UN this legitimacy. Certainly, what the UN and its agencies do, the extent of its 74 current interventions, for peacekeeping or humanitarian reasons in the affairs of other nations, are disappointingly far from well known.
The G8 nations themselves have barely begun to face up to the realisation that unless we all hang together, we shall, as Benjamin Franklin opined “most assuredly hang separately.” The G8 fault lines have been widely advertised. Between the US and Europe over climate change and the Middle East, and between Russia and the rest over democracy, human rights, the missile shield designed to protect against a potential attack from Iran, and Kosovo, where Russia backs Serbia in refusing to sanction an independent province.
Partly for these reasons we should not perhaps expect too much from the final G8 communiqué. But as the Italians prepare for their turn as G8 presidents, they might reflect on some of the wider governance questions. The G8 is hardly an ideal forum with eight rich countries assisted at times by five of the richer of the poorer nations. It needs to evolve. In another 32 years how will it look?
How should it be accountable? Should there be some corresponding Parliamentary Assembly? Should the European Union be represented, as now, by a Gang of Four states (though all large economies)? What assistance can be given to encourage co-operation between groups of states? Despite our own constitutional difficulties in Europe this is nevertheless something about which the Italians might profitably start to think if they are not doing so already.
*The author is editor of EuropaWorld
(EUobserver)
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