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Originally posted by akilles
They should just go ahead and call it Ing-So
A number of issues, in addition to the development challenge, merit consideration by the L-20. One is the need to combat terrorism in a way that respects human rights and political pluralism. Another is the inadequate satet of the world's public health systems. The SARS crisis and other outbreaks have demonstrated that even a relatively minor outbreak of infrectious disease has the potential to overhwlem national and global public health systems. Experts keep warning that an influenza pandemic could kill millions and that the threat of deliberate bioterrorism cannot be discounted. Leaders in teh L-20 could provide the political impetus to ensure that systems at the global, regional, and national level are adequately resourced and that there is sufficient communication, cooperation, and research to bolster the world's defenses against infectious disease.
[empahsis added]
The goal of this group would be similar to that of the G-20: to establish an enviroment that promotes the exchange of views rather than pre-cooked briefs and speeches. On so many important questions today, answers can only be found if national capitals engage one another directly, and the best way for them to do that is if their leadrs get together. The L-20 should be results-oriented, focussing on those issuse on which clear political leadership is needed to move the world forward. As for membership, it is important not to let the group get bogged down over this question. Perhaps the participants for a first meeting could be drawn from teh current G-20 and could tehn decide how best to broaden their memberhsip in more explicitly political directions, particularly with respect to the Middle East and Africa.
The main justification for an L-20 can be expressed very simply: the boundaries between countries are growing fainter. Globalization is not a proces that can be turned on and off at will. Today, successful countries work as closely with their freinds areound the world as they do with their neighbors next door. What happens in China or Brazil of India is of great importance to the United States and Germany and Australia. Economically, deepening interdependence is giving everyone (in develiped and developing countries alike) similar stakes in open systems of international trade and investment. Politically, the international community is developing collective responses to global threats such as weapons proliferation and international terrorism. Environmentally, issues such as climate change and the hrowing threat to the oceans affect everyone, and the same holds true for emerging concerns such as global public health and threat of new pandemics.
The nation-state remains the principal actor - the principal locus of accountability - on the international stage, but global forces require all states to adjust their frames of reference. Traditional aliances and clubs still make a lot of sense in the areas where their reach matches their ambitions. But there are other areas in whch the old ways of doing business are simply not good enough, and in which agreements mean little unless they include the new centers of power in the world.
Moreover, issues today cut across traditional policy boundaries. On development, for ecample, the UN's Monterrey Consensus of 2002 made clear how important it is for governments to integreate into their overall agendas subjects ranging from official aid to debt relief to trade access to good governance to foreign investment. From the perspective of national governments, these subjects involve many different ministries and responsibilities, and it is hard to get everyone to work together effectively. But all of these policy clusters come together in the responsibilities of political leaders.
finance ministers and central-bank governors from the following countries: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canda, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia,Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States. The Eureopean Ungion is also a member, as is the managing director of the IMF, the president of the World Bank, the chariperson of the IMF's International monetary and Fincianial Committee, and the chairperson of the IMF and World Bank's Development Committee
[emphasis added]
Because an atmospher eof informality is central to teh sucecss of the L-20, it could work alongside the UN and other major international institutions rather than be liked to any of them. The L-20 would not, for similar reasons, be addressed by current efforts to expand the UN Security Council to make it more representative. The Secutiry Council, regardless of its eventual membership, will continue to be a traty-based, decision-making authority. The L-20, on the other hand, would be a caucus of leading countries working together to build an international consensus[...]The L-20 would not try to displace existing multilateral institutions.
Originally posted by Echtelion
Interesting, I did'nt know that our Prime Minister was a member of the CFR...
enigmatic debris
impliment the idea that the elite set the global economic agenda and that free-market capitalism will win out over any and all governmental attempts to stop it.
Originally posted by Enigmatic Debris
Got top paragraph from a book. Maybe you should read it.