THE STANLEY FOUNDATION- THINK, SEPTEMBER 2009
By David Shorr
Making the "Gs" Work for the World: Principles for Summit Reform
How Leading Nations Lead. As more and more global challenges cry out for increased international cooperation, there is an urgent need for the leaders of the world’s influential nations to combine efforts for decisive action. The agenda is full for the upcoming Pittsburgh G-20 summit but, argues Stanley Foundation program officer David Shorr, world leaders should also update the process of summitry itself. Read the four main guidelines Shorr recommends for such a reform effort.
The meeting of the G-8 in L’Aquila, Italy, in July was a veritable frenzy of high-level diplomacy—with a total 24 world leaders convening in four different combinations in just three days. This flurry of consultation is an apt symbol for the complex international politics of our fast-changing world.
It also signals the need for traditional industrialized powers to figure out how they're going to deal diplomatically with rising powers. Instead of pulling other influential nations into an updated forum for global leadership, the old guard is trying to hedge its bets: maintain the old club and tentatively form new ones.
This is unfortunate because it postpones any serious response to a key question for high-level diplomacy: How will leading nations lead? As the global challenges of nuclear nonproliferation, economic recovery, and climate change (among others) cry out for increased international cooperation, there is an urgent need for the leaders of the world’s influential nations to combine efforts for decisive action.
The "Gs" process is unique as a source of political will, for not only does it bring together the world’s pivotal nations, it does so at the highest political level. These presidents and prime ministers are the ultimate decision makers, with the ability to change policy, reach compromise, and support action.
So in addition to the important issues on the agenda of the upcoming Pittsburgh G-20 summit, world leaders should update the process of summitry itself. The strategic goals for summit reform should be to place leadership responsibilities squarely on a specific set of pivotal nations and focus the agenda on topics worthy of top-level attention.
The Stanley Foundation sees four main guidelines for such a reform effort:
Emphasize Action. The standard by which summit diplomacy should be judged is its effectiveness in tackling challenges like nonproliferation, development, and climate change. Recently, the summits have been trying to adopt a new discipline of accountability, with commitments spelled out clearly, and expectations of follow-through consciously encouraged. Indeed, too often diplomacy is the art of papering over differences and creating the appearance of action.
Given what’s at stake in the current international agenda, that simply won’t do. We have to hope that as leaders wake up to the potential consequences of regional nuclear arms races in Northeast Asia or the Middle East, global warming, and declining living standards, they will redouble their efforts at cooperation.
Overcome Differences. In spite of the glaring need for collective action, the prevalent pattern on critical issues has been for national governments to square off rather than coming together. The criterion that a G-8 successor group should use to set its agenda should be issues fraught by international discord and needing high-level policy impetus. Naturally, splits between the pivotal states won’t melt away, but a global diplomatic focal point for pivotal powers would at least provide a proper forum and set of expectations.
Minimize Distractions. Focusing a reformed summit process on critical and sensitive issues will be a discipline. The Gs already demand a great deal of work from participating policymakers, and the aim of this reform proposal is to make the best use of that time. For instance, looking at the communiqués from the L’Aquila summit, they cover nearly every issue under the sun. Even though the leaders were presumably spared all the details, producing these sprawling documents must have involved wasted diplomatic effort.
Maximize Consultations. At a moment when inclusiveness and broad international cooperation are the order of the day, it’s fair to ask whether the world should welcome a set of powers presuming to act on behalf of the global common good. In contrast to the United Nations or other treaty-based institutions, the lack of any legal authority in the summit process indeed means that it cannot impose requirements on other nations. To a great extent, however, today’s global problems demand political and policy steps and not just legally binding measures.
Besides, the need for a more consensual style of international leadership does not negate the basic need for leadership. Negotiations among the entire community of nations are the most prone to inertia. The best way to respond to skepticism of leadership from an exclusive club would be intensive consultation and consensus building between the pivotal powers and the “rest.”
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