H o w G ( r ) 8 i s i t ?

What follows is the text of an "Idea Paper", that I submitted for the Manipal MUN. It was supposed to have "shock value". That it doesn't. It on;y springs a subtle surprise in terms of perspective, that too, in the last line only.Anyway, Here Goes :


HOW G(R)8 IS IT?
A REVIEW ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE GROUP OF EIGHT

“The G8 summit in Japan earlier this month was a painful demonstration of the pitiful state of global cooperation.” – Jeffery Sachs, in The Guardian

Are the annual G8 Summits relevant in the Twenty First Century? Even with the inclusion of the Outreach Five, is the Group representative of the needs and beliefs of this heavily globalized World? The Group is a gathering of the Heads of the most powerful countries, economically and politically, but these questions still need answering. One can’t deny that the Group of Eight has been instrumental in the implementation of multilateral treaties that have changed the face of international trade. At the same time, one can’t help but have reservations about the futility of geriatric bureaucrats, deliberating the food-crisis of the relatively under-developed nations, over a seven-course meal, and then coming to the general consensus that nothing particular need be done. A debate has been raging in the media for quite a while now, about whether the Group is redundant, and whether a change in structure could revive it, and make it any more effective. Similar arguments are proposed with respect to other international groups of similar structure, like the NAM. What nobody seems to comprehend, though, is that the uniqueness of the G8, whether for better or for worse, lies in its composition. Giving the Group more power, either military or otherwise, will simply turn it into a parallel NATO, and a growth in the number of members, even gradually, is leading us towards another General Assembly, albeit a more informal variant.
Paradigm Shift. Let’s, for a moment, assume that the G8 never existed; that Rambouilet never happened. How different would things have been? Could the impending déjà vu of the 1973 oil crisis and the global recession that followed (the reason behind the formation of the G6) have been fully avoided? Or would we be deeper in this predicament than we are now? The paragraphs that follow attempt a perspective of the possible Good, Bad and Ugly implications, of a World without the Group of Eight.
Anybody’s everybody criticizes the Group’s policy on the trade of drugs for terminal diseases. The argument is that the G8 is giving more AIDS to Africa than they are aid. Over 60% of the African population suffers from AIDS. The G8 seems to want to appear like Miss-Goody-Two-Shoes, by pledging $60Billion to help AIDS victims in Africa. That this is seriously short of the target they declared to the world at Gleneagles seems to have gone unnoticed. Funnier still, is the amount of money they’ve pledged to improve high-school and college level education, when most children in Africa, are either starving, or dying for lack of medical attention. Also, the crux of the conundrum is more in that they have chosen not to reduce the duties and thereby the cost of these drugs that are exported from member nations. Had the G8 not existed, we would probably have had multiple bilateral treaties between these member states and the African countries, for the trade of vital drugs and drug technology at a subsidized price. One can go so far as to state that the percentage of the African population affected by HIV would be much lower. On the flip-side of this coin, is the possibility that without the G8, even the token aid they have pledged, would not be available. It’s anybody’s guess what would possibly have happened, but it’s difficult to deny that the presence of the Group has altered the African populace in some way or the other.
At the recently concluded G8 Summit in Japan, President George W Bush signed-off by saying “Thank You, from the World’s Largest Polluter”. One doesn’t know now, whether to feel happy that he finally accepted the crisis, or sad, since he meant it as a joke, and all the members of the Group found it rather amusing and funny. With the exception of France, none of the G8 members are taking the Environment so seriously as even to have imposed national caps on Carbon Emission. Their modus operandi is to set up elaborate panels and committees, talk a whole lot, and then conclude that they should pollute as much as they want, because they are rich, and that the developing World should cut down on emissions drastically, to compensate.
The essence, therefore, is simple. The G8 probably is more words than action. But they’ve changed the face of Free Trade in the World. All they need to do, is accept that they are a body focused on transnational trade between super-powers. They should simply stop claiming to be seriously concerned about other facets of World development, which, one believes, is only a façade.