Globalization and Summit Reform: An Experiment in International Governance

113 Pages·2008·2.44 MB·English

by  Peter C. Heap (auth.)

Globalization and Summit Reform
Peter C. Heap
Globalization and Summit
Reform
An Experiment in International Governance
Foreword by Dr. Gordon Smith
Afterword by The Right Honourable Paul Martin
123
International Development Research Centre
Ottawa • Cairo • Dakar • Montevideo • Nairobi • New Delhi • Singapore
PeterC.Heap
Senior Research Associate
CentreforGlobalStudies
University of Victoria
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To Lynda
Foreword
Ever since I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago in October 1962,
I have been interested in challenges at the global scale that could affect the future
of humanity. The Cuban Missile Crisis brought home to me how vulnerable we
are. Indeed it brought home that we could be dead from causes thousands of miles
away with a warning of a maximum of thirty minutes. It was obvious the world
was becoming smaller.
As I looked out the window from my apartment in Chicago, I could see chil-
dren of school age at play in the alley – despite it being a weekday. They weren’t
in school. One rarely saw adult men with them – only women. What conse-
quences would that bring? Not far away was the headquarters of a strange group
calling themselves the Black Moslems. There was a palpable anger that radiated
from there. Where would this lead? Was there not a breaking point in how much
difference in wealth and general well-being could be tolerated?
I became increasingly interested in international politics, in particular about
how we governed ourselves through international institutions and international
law. Hans Morgenthau emphasized to us the importance of national interests. It
became clear to me that governments needed interests as an incentive to act, cer-
tainly if there were important consequences in acting. Values were important but
were not a sufficient condition.
I decided to complete my graduate work at MIT because of its program in
strategic studies. Thanks to William Kaufman I became increasingly aware of the
consequences of uncertainty, differences in perception and failures in communica-
tion. Bill was at the time working part-time in Washington as an adviser to Bob
McNamara, the Secretary of Defense. The latter produced a superb DVD called
The Fog of War, which includes an insider’s view of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The bottom line emerging from McNamara’s account is that the world was very
close to nuclear war. More disturbing still, war could well have occurred not be-
cause any state really wanted such a conflict, but instead through inadvertence.
In the following decades, I worked both in positions outside Canada as well in
Ottawa. My NATO experience both in the late 1960s and as Ambassador from 1985
to 1990 confirmed in my mind the fragility of the international order. Working in
Ottawa in the Privy Council Office taught me a great deal about how governments
make decisions. There was an obvious gap between our growing interdependence in
the world and our means for governing that interdependence.
In 1994 Prime Minister Jean Chrétien asked me to be Deputy Minister of For-
eign Affairs and his Personal Representative for the G-7/8 Summits. I restructured
the Department of Foreign Affairs so that there would be a strong group capable
viii Foreword
of dealing with the emerging agenda of non-traditional issues. These ranged from
climate change to trans-national organized crime. It became more and more ap-
parent to me that global governance in the various sectors was lagging. It was also
clear that attempts to improve global governance were fraught with difficulty –
largely stemming from perceptions of national interest that were limited in their time
perspective. Perspective was essentially determined by the electoral calendar.
Observing the G-7/8 up close was very valuable. It was clear that leaders had
a broader view and were often frustrated by the tunnel vision of their ministers.
They were interested in big global issues; one year, for example, there was a focus
on the spread of infectious disease. It was also clear that inter-personal dynamics
counted for a great deal. They became, more or less, friends; you talk differently
to people you see on a regular basis and who call you by your first name.
Imagine my delight, therefore, when I went to see Paul Martin, then Canada’s
Finance Minister, and he told me that managing our growing global interdepend-
ence was the most important challenge facing the world. Although his portfolio
focused on international financial issues, his interest was much broader. When in
due course Mr. Martin became Prime Minister, he brought with him a desire to
apply the lessons he had learned as one of a group of twenty Finance Ministers to
the head of government level. As for me, I left the public service in 1997 to build
the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria. Perhaps not surpris-
ingly, given my background, it has focused on issues of global governance.
This book describes the journey of advancing former Prime Minister Martin’s
initiative to create an L-20. Or at least it describes what a group of people led by
John English and me tried to do both to test the validity of the idea and to broaden
its support. Although many of us had governmental experience in our back-
grounds, we were no longer part of government. We now lived in the environment
of “think tanks”. Our new task was to cast the net wide for useful ideas and bring
back what we found to decision-makers, in the hopes that they in turn would be
inspired to act.
Particular credit has to go to my friend and colleague, inside and outside gov-
ernment, Barry Carin, who did more work than anyone on this project. He thought
through the approach, organized the meetings and wrote the reports.
We must also give thanks to our various sponsors, most importantly the Inter-
national Development Research Centre and the Canadian International Develop-
ment Agency.
Paul Martin is no longer active in government. But his conviction that leaders
can make things happen that no one else can replicate remains; I share that convic-
tion. Our work now focuses on creating a smaller group of fourteen countries. It
may be easier to agree on fourteen to start. The fourteen are the G-8 plus Brazil,
India, China, South Africa and Mexico (the BRICSAM countries have been in-
vited to the last couple of G-8 Summits to participate in a few hours of the meet-
ing). That makes 13. We are also including Egypt as it is inconceivable, at least to
me, that a new Summit membership could be struck without an Islamic country,
preferably one from the Middle East.
Foreword ix
I hope this book will be of interest to a variety of readers:
• those interested in global challenges and the gap in global governance;
• people interested in Summit reform;
• those who want to know more about what happened to the L-20 idea; and
• people who want some ideas on how those on the “outside” can influence the
“inside”.
We would be delighted to hear what you think; contact us at [email protected],
and we can continue the conversation which this book chronicles.
Note to University Teachers
The information in this book has been developed into an L-20 University Course
Package. This Package can be found at two locations on the World Wide Web –
the L-20 website itself (http://www.l20.org/learning.php) and the IGLOO online
database (http://www.igloo.org/l20project). IGLOO is an online network that fa-
cilitates knowledge exchange between individuals and organizations studying,
working or advising on global issues.
Executive Director Dr. Gordon Smith
Centre for Global Studies
University of Victoria
Acknowledgments
This book tells the story of a project which involved many talented people over
several years. My role as their chronicler therefore requires me to acknowledge
my debt to them as a group for their sustained, high quality work on what I con-
sider to be a very important aspect of the evolution of global governance.
As with all such endeavours, however, I owe a specific thanks to a number of
colleagues who helped me along the way. To begin at the top (at least in terms of
rank), I would like to thank the Right Honourable Paul Martin for his involvement
in the L-20 project as a whole and for his patience and care in reviewing an early
draft of this book. We were extremely pleased that he agreed to contribute an in-
sightful Afterword to this publication.
I am also very grateful to the sixteen distinguished project participants (listed
in Appendix D of this volume) who responded in a most forthcoming way to post-
workshop interviews in the summer of 2006. Their comments and suggestions
were always constructive and helpful.
Closer to home, I must thank Gordon Smith and Barry Carin for giving me the
opportunity to take on this task in the first place. They have been unstinting in
their assistance and have provided invaluable first-hand information (usually over
lunch) about an important process they originated and continue to nurture today.
Also at the Centre for Global Studies, the continuing support and reporting skill of
Clint Abbott is much appreciated.
Finally, I would like to thank Lynda Cronin for her encouragement and
wise advice as the story unfolded. This book is dedicated to her, with love and
admiration.
Contents
Foreword by Dr. Gordon Smith...........................................................................vii

Acknowledgments.................................................................................................xi

Introduction Confronting the Horsemen..........................................................xv

1 Genesis of the L-20 Project...............................................................................1

2 Underlying Assumptions...................................................................................7
Gaps in the Institutional Architecture..............................................................7
What Do Leaders Do Anyway?.....................................................................11

3 Taking Aim – Focusing the Project................................................................15
Early Meetings..............................................................................................15
Project Launch...............................................................................................16
The First Round of Workshops.....................................................................19

4 Adjusting the Trajectory................................................................................23
Gathering International Support....................................................................23
The Second Round........................................................................................24

5 Engaging the United States – The Central Puzzle of Global Governance..33

6 Global Fairness and the Search for Legitimacy............................................39
Globalization and Fairness............................................................................39
Concepts of Legitimacy.................................................................................41
The Role of Civil Society..............................................................................43
New Approaches to Old Problems................................................................45

7 Lessons Large and Small................................................................................51
Role of Leaders..............................................................................................51
L-20 Composition..........................................................................................52
Possible Agenda Items..................................................................................54
Skepticism and Doubt....................................................................................56
The New World of Networks........................................................................57