G8 Communique 2011

I've finally got hold of a copy of the 2011 G8 communique and it was hardly worth the wait. The idea of the G8 releasing a communique is a relatively new concept and it's normally just two or three vague paragraphs describing what was discussed along with the now traditional call to re-start the Doha round of World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks. The 2011 communique is an epic running to twenty pages not counting the eight annexes and began circulating amongst the press the day before the summit began. So basically the French hosts have put an awful lot of work making sure that the public have no idea what was really discussed at the summit

For example the communique makes no reference whatsoever of the big issue of the summit - the role of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the wake of the Ratko Mladic arrest. This is actually a hugely important and pressing global issue at the moment. About a month ago the ICC convicted two Croat generals, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markac of war crimes committed during the break up of the former Yugoslavia. Specifically a sample charge of killing 150 Serb civilians and ethnically cleansing 200,000 more from the Krajina region of Croatia during operation Storm which was planned in conjunction with NATO and carried out with NATO air support. The convictions shocked many Croats because up until then the assumption was that the ICC was nothing more then a political tool to persecute the enemies of NATO. So because they'd only been killing Serbs lots of people thought the ICC would let Gotovina and Markac get away with it. The fact that the ICC did convict was seen as a large step towards turning the ICC into a credible international body capable of enforcing international law. Then, with less the six hours of debate, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) decided to declare war on Libya and the ICC went straight back to being a joke.

The only part of the communique that has any real relevance is section 7 paragraph 64 which talks about Libya. It ends with the words; "Qaddafi and the Libyan government have failed to fulfill their responsibility to protect the Libyan population and have lost all legitimacy. He has no future in a free, democratic Libya. He must go." Apart from the inclusion of the word "democratic" alongside the more traditional "free Libya" this is interesting because Russia have put their name to it. Russia abstained from the UNSC vote and have previously likened NATO's campaign against Libya to a medieval crusade. This change in position does not mean that Russia have suddenly become convinced by the case against Qaddafi or support the NATO operation. It simply means that they've accepted that the overthrow of Qaddafi will significantly damage the geo-political strategy of their old enemy, the United States. So they decided to sign up in order to take retaliation for planned US military bases in Poland.

Of course the war in Libya will drag on over the summer and will possibly be joined by a much larger Israeli war (the deportation part of the plan is now in place). Then we get to do this all over again when the G20 Summit returns to France in November. This split of the G8 and the G20 actually raises an important question about the future of the G8 specifically and political globalisation generally. The G8 is meant to be the Group of 8 richest world economies. However the 8 richest world economies are;

1. USA,
2. China,
3. Japan,
4. India,
5. Germany,
6. France,
7. Britain,
8. Brazil.

While the members of the G8 are; the USA, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Canada, Italy, Russia. So only five of the G8 are actually amongst the 8 richest world economies. That means we can keep expanding the grouping through the G20, the G77, the G200 etc until every country in the world is a member and we'll end up with a group just as large and unwieldy as the UN General Assembly which will inevitably be the precursor to a one world government. Alternatively we can just ask nations to leave the club when then fail to meet the membership criteria.