Much anticipated, the second cycle of the BRICS Leaders meetings commenced in Fortaleza Brazil on July 15th. And as expected the first really concrete contribution to international development got off the ground – the BRICS Bank called the “New Development Bank”. This will change how many view the BRICS.
I’ve just had the good fortune to return from Oxford University where I spent several very pleasant days examining with experts and others the health and direction of global governance. This almost annual Princeton University Workshop is a highly satisfactory partnership of the Council on Foreign Relations and Stewart Patrick, Princeton University and John Ikenberry, The Stanley Foundation, President Keith Porter and Program Director Jennifer Smyser, and ‘moi’ of the Global Summitry Project at the Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto.
While we all have been debating whether the Russian intervention in the Crimea warranted expelling Russia from this or that organization, a very serious wound has been inflicted on global summitry.
I was caught by the discussion in this morning’s New York Times in the “Room for Debate” section. At the NYT site several old friends from global summitry analysis and a few new acquaintances set out their opinions on whether to kick Russia out of the G8 or not.
The G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bankers (Ministers) met this weekend in Australia to further develop the G20 Brisbane Action Agenda. They released, mercifully, a short communique that identified, whether stated or not, their continued measured efforts to achieve in G20-speak ‘strong sustainable and balanced growth”. This meeting is just one piece in a continuing effort to provide policy coordination for the G20 – and a step along the road to the completion of the Brisbane Action Plan.
So my colleague and friend Stewart Patrick, the Director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on Foreign Relations has given us a full picture of the contemporary global governance system recently in Foreign Affairs.
But say it ain’t so Stewart. The bottom line for him is an unruly and largely unorganized global governance architecture delivering only partially what is needed:
The future will see not the renovation or the construction of a glistening new international architecture but rather the continued spread of an unattractive but adaptable multilateral sprawl that delivers a partial measure of international cooperation through a welter of informal arrangements and piecemeal approaches.
Well I must say, I have a fair bit of catching up to do. Much in the way of travel and international legal action, but not much action on the blog front. Well that is at an end.
And we are approaching as well, if you hadn’t noticed, a milestone event in international relations – the 100th anniversary of the commencement of the “War to End All Wars” – the First World War. If you haven’t noticed, there has been a notable uptick in the number of books on the approach to war and the initiation of World War 1 – August 4, 1914. So I shall be delving into various of these books and articles on this crucial twentieth century event.
And here are some thoughts on the St. Petersburg Summit from David Shorr, Program Officer, for the Stanley Foundation
David …
So putting the last items in the bag for the trip to St. Petersburg. This one looks like trouble. Five years in to G20 Leaders Summits and St. Petersburg would appear to have all the characteristics of a major distraction. This would not be the first. I certainly remember how the Greek Euro crisis drove France’s G20 Agenda at Cannes right off the cliff. It would appear that Syria – and the use of military force in retaliation for the use of chemical weapons – could be even more of an agenda killer.
Finance Ministers and Central Bankers Moscow July 2013 Image Credit: x.dawn.com
The Finance Ministers and Central Bankers of the G20 met as scheduled in Moscow at the end of the week. This periodic meeting is just a part, though a key part, of the “iceberg” that is global summitry today. A fascinating factoid – this meeting of “finance” officials does not generally include the central bank officials when it gathers at the actual G20 Leaders Summit. Given the key role that central bankers have been playing in trying to “right” the global economy, that probably should come to an end. But in any case their communiqué underlined the Iceberg Theory that I and others have identified for some time.