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Is G8 a parallel UN Security Council?

K. Z. Islam
WHAT is the yardstick and rationale for forming an international organisation? Is it military might? Is it financial strength? Is it the level of GDP? Or is it population? There can be various combinations for forming an international organisation.
At the end of World War 11, the victors decided to take measures to avoid the possibility of repetition of a global conflict and formed the UN. At the pinnacle of the world political management, but looking increasingly anachronistic, is the UN Security Council. Of its 15 members. 10 can rotate at 'the whim of the various UN regional groupings. The other 5, which wield vetoes and are permanent. are US. Russia. China. Britain and France, roughly speaking the victors of the last, long ago. world war.
Since the location of the UN Headquarters is in New York, the US has taken it for granted that it is an offshoot of the US government. Also the absurd system of veto has put 200 odd members of the UN at
the mercy of the one veto. This very veto has rendered the UN a most ineffective organisation for solving international problems relating to politics, food, genocides, climate change, financial crisis, fuel and many others.
Because of the ineffectiveness of the UN Security Council there has been a tendency for various groups of countries to form associations. We have seen the group of non-aligned nations, the G77 (now 130). G8, etc. None of these have worked democratically, or have any formal constitution or permanent offices. The regional organisations have fared much better, eg. Asean, Apec, Saarc, etc.
In the early 1970s, developed countries faced with various problems, such as the devaluation of the dollar and the first oil crisis, began to realise the need for a toplevel forum to discuss, in a comprehensive manner, policycoordi-nation for global economic issues such as macro-economy, currencies. trade and energy.
Against these backdrops the first summit meeting was held as proposed by Valery Giscard d'Estaing. then president of
France, among 6 countries --France. Germany. Italy. Japan, the US and the UK - in Paris in November 1975. Subsequently, Canada (since 1976) and Russia (since 1992) were added to the list, which became known as G8 (Group of 8). The president of the European Commission has also been attending the summit from 1981.
On the positive side, it may be mentioned that, without any formal constitution or permanent secretariat, this forum gives the leaders of the top industrialised countries an opportunity to get together informally and possibly sort out some differences. If one sees the proceedings of the various summits, they have repeatedly supported the UN and other international organisations like World Bank, IMF. UNFCC, IPCC. etc. One wonders if, over the 34 years of the existence of G8, they can claim any substantial contribution to the resolution of any international problem.
In recent years, the G8 summit has become notorious for attracting a lot of publicity for the vocal assembly of various groups
opposed to these incctings. The clashes between the police and these groups were more widely publicised in the media than the proceedings of the meetings.
All credit must be given to Yasuo Fukuda, prime minister of Japan (where the 34th G8 summit was held), for choosing a remote highland resort at Toyako in Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island 1 couldn't locate Toyako in a large map of Japan. Many foreign activists were turned away at the border, and such demonstrations were kept to distant cities where riot police outnumbered malcontents.
Even the media horde and those NGOs deemed semi-respectable were interned in a holiday camp about 20 miles from the 8 great leaders. Fukuda showed statesmanship in answer to the perennial criticism of the G8, a selfappointed steering group for global problems but hardly representative of the world, by inviting 7 national leaders from Africa to join the G8. Also invited were leaders of Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Australia and Indonesia.
About the leaders of the G8 participating in the summit; Mr. Fukuda is weak domestically, Mr. Brown looks slightly better, Mr. Bush is a lame, unpopular duck. Sarkozy of France struggles to comprehend how and why the voters' enthusiasm has evaporated. Medvedev of Russia is a sidekick of Vladimir Putin while Harper of Canada was a strong
opponent of the Kyoto protocol before he became prime minister of Canada and, finally, Berlusconi of Italy is a well known wheeler and dealer. Perhaps that leaves only Merkel of Germany with a clean slate. What the world can expect from these dubious leaders without any delegation of authority from their electorates is anybody's guess.
Generally, people do not see any importance of the G8, which is only a sort of parallel of the Security Council of the UN. Even if there has to be a periodic review of the working of the UN, might the world be better managed by a G12 or G16 including certainly all the BRIC countries andTurkey?
The 34th G8 summit will certainly go down in history as the most expensive ever held.
Although a full account has not been announced the estimated total cost is likely to exceed half a billion dollars, dwarfing the measly S2.5 million spent at Gleneagles 3 years ago.
Now for the actual negotiation in Hokkaido. The G8 documents are voluminous and would run into hundreds of pages. It is doubtful that many people will read them, and whether their recommendations are useful and relevant. Mr. Fukuda's summary on July 9 covered the following points:
World economy
On substance, the summit was a let down. A year ago, when the summit took place in Germany, oil and food were at half of today's prices, while Northern Rock was an unknown little bank. At the
Hokkaido summit, the G8 leaders rose to the challenges posed by the "three Fs" -- food, fuel and financial credit crunch -- with platitudes, and little effort was made to resolve the contradiction between calls for larger oil supplies and the promise of a low-carbon future.
Environment and climate change
G8 sought to share with all parties to the UNFCC (United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change) the goal of achieving at least 50% reduction of global emissions by 2050, recognising that this global challenge could only be met by a global response. Last year, Germany's chancellor Merkel overcame the reluctance of George Bush and got the G8 to promise to "consider seriously" cutting greenhouse emission by at least half by 2050. This time, the G8 vowed to "consider and adopt."
Yet, the G8 commitments start to crumble under scrutiny, as a diplomat pointed out how absurd it was for today's politicians to take responsibility for meeting goals 4 decades from now.
Development and Africa
After discussions, the G8 leaders announced new measures for improving education, health, water supplies and sanitation, and increasing the number of doctors and nurses in Africa. However, the Times says that it will be by the presence, or absence, of a head-
line African figure that their talks will be judged a success or failure Fukuda and Brown are reported to be pressing for the fulfillment of pledges made at the 2005 Gleneagles summit, but Sarkozy and Berlusconi are seen to be for pulling back from those commitments.
The G8 leaders set a five-year deadline to commit $ 60 billion in funding to help Africa fight disease, including pledging 100 million mosquito nets by 2010, which will prevent thousands of deaths from malaria. They also renewed a commitment made three years ago to double aid for Africa to $ 25 billion by 2010 an<| to consider pledging further assistance after 2010.
Political issues
The G8 discussed DPRK, Iran. Afghanistan, Middle East, Sudan, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, and civilian nuclear cooperation with India.
The bottom line is that the G8 discussion is hardly going to have any influence whatsoever in all the matters discussed in the agenda. The main discussion should have been to bringGS, which is really an anachronism, in line with the contemporary situation. They should have concentrated on how to make UN more effective in resolving the various problems confronting the world today.
KZ Islam is a businessman.