Document(s) 9 of 21

In addition to the recurring question of how best to engage the United States, another set of inter-connected issues wove through the workshop debates, no matter what the nominal focus of the discussion was. This collection of issues concerned the nature of globalization, the variable impact which globalization was having on people around the world, and the related question of how fair this was, especially to those in the global South. Invariably this led, in turn, to consideration of how best to ensure that global decision-makers (and/or international institutions) had a degree of legitimacy and, eventually, to reflections on the potential for injecting more effective democratic elements into the evolving pattern of global governance.

Globalization and Fairness

It will be recalled that the impetus for the L-20 project came from the often maligned world of politics and government, the realm of interminable meetings, over-simplified briefing notes and electoral calculation. So it seems fair to begin with a glance at the context in which at least one politician, Paul Martin, thought he was operating. In his 2005 Foreign Affairs article, Martin gave as his main justification for advocating the L-20 approach the simple fact that the boundaries between countries were growing fainter. Martin’s view was that globalization was not a process which could be “turned on and off at will”, whether it was manifested in deepening economic interdependence, political cooperation to end weapons proliferation and combat terrorism, or collaborative action on environmental or health problems. He still saw the nation-state as the principal actor on the international stage (a traditional stance which others might question¹), but he saw the existing institutions and standard ways of doing business as inadequate to the challenges posed by globalization.²

Martin’s view of the world was shared by another North American politician, Bill Clinton. Somewhat earlier, during a speech at Yale University, Clinton posed the issue similarly:

My basic premise is this: the interdependent world, for all of its promise, is inevitably unsustainable, because it is unstable. We cannot continue to live in a world where we grow more and more interdependent, and we have no over-arching system to have the positive elements of interdependence outweigh the negative ones.

He went on to specify his conviction that “…the great mission of the twenty-first century world is to make it a genuine global community”, which would move from “mere” interdependence to integration, based on the characteristics of shared responsibilities, shared benefits and shared values.³

A Canadian leader might express the commitment differently, but the Martin and Clinton visions are fundamentally the same. The most important and pressing problems we face are global in scale, and the international institutions we are asking to deal with these challenges are not up to the task. At the same time, notwithstanding the strength and reach of globalization, both Martin and Clinton were firmly convinced that this phenomenon could be shaped.⁴ In that conviction, they were joined by the vast majority of the participants in the L-20 workshops.

The original Smith/Carin paper which helped focus early discussions explicitly embraced the activist notion that global change could be managed, and those attending the Waterloo, Bellagio and Ottawa meetings bought in, driven by the concern that an unacceptable level of unfairness needed to be redressed.⁵ This general sense was given specific point in many of the subsequent workshops.

At Oxford, no-one contested the argument in the background paper prepared for the session that the existing agricultural trade regime seriously disadvantaged the poor and the vulnerable, although there was much (inconclusive) debate over how to remedy the situation.⁶ In New York, there was extensive discussion of how best to engage developing countries in an international system of emissions control. The puzzle was how to encourage meaningful policy change while not stunting economic development or, conversely, exposing vulnerable economies to the impact of rapid climate change in the event of a collective failure to act.⁷

During the discussion of safe drinking water and sanitation (SDS) in Alexandria, the point was made – when allocating SDS services, remember that the poorest of the poor have no access, period.⁸ In the Mexico City workshop, participants were reminded that, far from being a bloodless accounting exercise, international financial crises resulted in unemployment, poverty, inequality and human misery, a disproportionate amount of which occurred in the developing countries least able to cushion the blow.⁹

In the Geneva workshop on pandemics, the level of unfairness between rich and poor translated directly into premature death among the latter. The meeting’s background paper reminded participants that, contrary to expectation, the life expectancy gap between the richest and the poorest nations had widened dramatically following the end of the Cold War. Today the gap between the society with the greatest life expectancy (Japan) and the shortest (Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and a short list of African countries) is nearly 50 years. More people died of tuberculosis, malaria and HIV in 2003 than in any year in history, and this despite some well publicized international funding drives.¹⁰

In Victoria, the effects of unfairness in the fisheries field were identified as intergenerational as well as inter-regional. Simply put, if measures were not taken to halt over-fishing of the oceans, there would be few if any fish left for the next generations to catch. For some developing countries this raised subsistence issues, not matters of dietary preference.¹¹

This litany of inequality (mirrored in almost every workshop in one form or another) brought with it some nagging questions about how to develop international institutions which people in poor countries (and, for that matter, poor people within richer countries) could recognize as being prepared to act in the interest of the full range of the world’s societies – in other words, institutions which held some form of legitimacy.

Concepts of Legitimacy

Issues related to legitimacy entered the debate early in the L-20 project. Throughout the Waterloo meeting, for example, there were references to the “crisis of legitimacy” which affected existing international institutions. By and large this phrase was shorthand for the reality that the rich, developed countries dominated decision-making, and usually this privileged position was built into the structure of organizations (particularly noticeable in the case of the IMF and the World Bank, but also evident in the UN, with the veto-wielding Permanent Members on the Security Council). In some settings, such as the World Trade Organization, the advantage for developed countries derived from their greater capacity to master and manage an extremely complex and technical process. In other settings, notably the G-7/8, the rich countries simply established a members-only club to help them bring stability to international economic and financial relations (on their own terms, of course).

However it was accomplished, the two-tier nature of international processes seemed clear, and the situation was becoming increasingly untenable as the effects of globalization meant that these organizations were dealing more and more with issues which previously had been decided within national boundaries. Moreover, these institutions were conspicuously impervious to input from anyone except representatives of national governments. So not only was the full range of countries, big and small, rich and poor, unequally represented at all the international “high tables”, the citizens of those countries had very few ways of directly affecting the conversations at those tables. In the words of one of the background papers for the February 2004 launch meeting in Ottawa:

It is no longer accepted that executives draw up international policies, to a great extent prejudicing national policies, behind closed doors, but still in the name of the people.¹²

For the most part, the emphasis in the preliminary meetings and subsequent workshops was on addressing legitimacy through broadening the membership of an L-20 to include the main emerging economies or regional powers.¹³ Certainly, the practical problem in the economic field was that the growing clout of China and India (and, to a lesser extent, Brazil) meant that excluding them from deliberations on key issues made no sense. Throughout the L-20 project, the need to include the major developing countries went largely unchallenged, although the question of precisely which countries should be included occasioned an unresolved debate.

Simple expansion of the existing G-7/8 might generate criticism, however. In a 2001 paper, for example, Gerry Helleiner questioned the validity of establishing the G-20 Ministers of Finance group. He pointed out that this grouping was unilaterally created by the G-7, ignoring the efforts of developing countries since 1994 through their G-24 to initiate serious dialogue with industrial countries over international financial reforms. He suggested that the G-20 was “severely flawed” because it contained no representatives either of the poorest and smallest developing countries or of European countries (the Nordics and the Dutch) who might speak on their behalf. He noted that the G-20 did not possess procedures for reporting to the broader international community nor did it provide for non-governmental inputs or systematic transparency. Overall, Helleiner’s judgment on the G-20 was negative (although many observers would say that the group has, in fact, served a useful purpose in recent years).¹⁴

How, then, might this critique be applied to the L-20 proposal, which after all originated partially in Paul Martin’s G-20 experience? In their original background paper, Smith and Carin suggested that the issue of G-20 paternity (i.e. ignoring the G-24) made no substantive difference. The mechanical joining of the G-7 and the G-24 would result an unwieldy body of thirty-one which would be too large to be effective. Some new “executive committee” would probably have to be devised, which would result, in the end, in something approximating the G-20. Smith and Carin expected that, over time, the G-20 might institute some sort of “constituency” system to ensure full reporting and a sense of ownership among non-members, and might make discussion papers and reports publicly available. That being said, they accepted the desirability of a more open process, and certainly agreed with Helleiner that a larger group broaden its agenda beyond technical financial issues.¹⁵

At its heart, the Helleiner critique turns on the nature of a possible L-20 and the scope of its activities. A lengthy discussion on this aspect occurred at the May 2006 workshop in Washington, D.C.¹⁶ On one side were participants who saw the L-20 as a pragmatic response to a requirement for more effective international problem-solving, and who maintained that the decision on group composition was inherently political. No proposed composition would evade criticism from some quarter or another, but the need for an L-20 was manifest. The perfect should not be allowed to be the enemy of the good. Generally, these participants did not claim for the L-20 the status of a world governing body (or even an international directoire), and were prepared to accept the charge that, even with the inclusion of the emerging economies, the group would be unrepresentative. From this standpoint, the ultimate proof of the L-20’s legitimacy would be its effectiveness, not its universality.¹⁷

On the other side were participants who worried that in effect an L-20 would be a pivotal (even if informally constituted) organ of global governance, the political and symbolic importance of which would be great. As such, the origins and processes of the body would be critical since its decisions would affect many not at the table. For significant numbers of people and countries to feel excluded from the decisions of an L-20 which operated largely behind closed doors would be a fatal flaw. One participant mused that setting up an L-20 amounted to forming a global executive without a corresponding global parliament and judiciary. Of course, if the L-20 was nothing more than a powerless caucus which discussed but did not act (or cause others to act), then the argument was moot, and perhaps institutions should be left as they were. At this point, the debate had gone full circle, since the general view, in this and in the other workshops, was precisely that the status quo was unacceptable.

The Role of Civil Society

If discussions about enhancing the legitimacy of the L-20 by including developing countries in the mix recurred frequently in the workshops, the corresponding debate over increasing its credibility through democratization was much more episodic – although no less lively for that. The starting point in the Waterloo meeting was that the principals in the L-20 would be leaders, and that the issue of accountability would be dealt with through the mechanisms of the governments they represented. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) could contribute to agenda setting, but governments would decide. The L-20 was not an all-encompassing state-societal forum.¹⁸ So much for engagement with civil society.¹⁹

Two months later at Bellagio, the emphasis shifted slightly to a concern that an L-20 deal with global issues in an open and transparent way. The possibility of outreach to civil society organizations was raised, possibly by establishing an L-20 advisory group.²⁰ By the time of the Ottawa launch meeting in February 2004, the question of how to involve civil society became, in the words of the meeting report, “a highly divisive issue”. Some participants felt strongly that civil society would become part of the L-20 process, and this was desirable. By welcoming civil society, the L-20 would be reducing the international democratic deficit and building constituencies of support for its work. Others worried that too much engagement would erode the informality of proceedings, undermine established democratic structures, and open meetings up to a “cacophony of millions of voices”. The organizational challenges would be formidable, including the task of delineating criteria for which elements of civil society to consult.²¹ In the end, there was a strong consensus that, if there was to be a role for civil society organizations at the L-20, government should resist the “tyranny of the loudest”, and not exclude voices from the South.²² Beyond that, the two conflicting views went unreconciled.

At the Oxford workshop on agricultural trade, participants noted the role of civil society representatives in pushing for reforms from the bottom up. The sense was that incorporating these elements of society somehow in the L-20 process would be a good idea.²³ In the San Jose workshop on infectious diseases, there was concern that the views of civil society organizations be built into analyses of international health problems and that a paternalistic approach be avoided.²⁴ At the Alexandria workshop on safe drinking water and sanitation, the emphasis was different. There, the competence of NGOs was called into question, and they were urged to work in partnership with local governments instead of tending to bypass them.²⁵

At the Princeton discussion of global public goods, participants addressed the “twin deficit” which inhibited cooperation in financing those goods. As described in the background paper for the workshop, the second of these two deficits was a “participation deficit”, which meant that key state and non-state actors were kept away from both the negotiation table and the operational implementation of international cooperation. Much of the subsequent discussion concerned the potentially increased role for private finance, but participants also recognized that civil society organizations were among the growing number of “transnational actors” becoming involved in international cooperation (and pressing their views on governments).²⁶

By the end of the project, the role of civil society remained unresolved. One of the project’s abiding images was that of a fairly small group of leaders grappling earnestly with global issues, untrammeled by the usual coterie of officials and advisors, and developing meaningful personal relationships which would make significant breakthroughs possible. Somehow, this approach was difficult to reconcile with worthy but incessant interjections from the full panoply of nongovernmental organizations, faith-based or otherwise. On the other hand, as Michael Zurn would point out, the days of “executive multilateralism” are probably numbered, as globalization wears away at the membranes separating the international from the national from the local. Accordingly, if it is ever to succeed, the L-20 will need to find some way of letting in the rest of the world.

In fact, there are a number of operating models for facilitating input from “outside”. One is the GLOBE/COM+ dialogue on environmental issues which shadows the G-8 meetings. This process is described in more detail in Chapter 8. The second is of older provenance and concerns the deliberations of the UN Security Council.

The Arria Formula is an informal arrangement that allows the Council greater flexibility to be briefed about international peace and security issues. It has been used frequently and has assumed growing prominence since it was first implemented in March, 1992.²⁷

The Arria Formula assumed special importance because, under long-standing Council practice, only delegations, high government officials (of Council members) and United Nations officials could speak at regular Council meetings and consultations. The Arria Formula enables a member of the Council to invite other Council members to an informal meeting, held outside of the Council chambers, and chaired by the inviting member. The meeting is called for the purpose of a briefing given by one or more persons, considered as expert in a matter of concern to the Council.

Today, Arria Formula meetings take place virtually every month, sometimes more than once. Attendance is typically at a very high level – the permanent representative or deputy. Only rarely do individual members fail to attend. The meetings are announced by the Council President at the beginning of each month or whenever organized, as part of the regular Council schedule. The meetings are provided with full interpretation by the Secretariat. No Council meetings or consultations are ever scheduled at a time when the Arria Formula meetings take place. So the Arria system is an interesting mixture of informality and formality. It allows the Council to sidestep its conservative Rules of Procedure and open itself in a very limited way to the outside world. A similar procedure could be adapted for the use of the L-20.

New Approaches to Old Problems

As the workshop series addressed a succession of potential agenda items for an L-20, issues of global fairness surfaced repeatedly, and the emphasis moved gradually in the direction of problems of development. Three of those later meetings – Petra in November 2005 on improving official development assistance, Princeton in February 2006 on financing global public goods, and Maastricht in March 2006 on furthering science and technology for development – dealt with traditional issues in this field in innovative ways.

The Petra meeting generated an interesting discussion about the objectives of official development assistance (ODA), and how to make the subject of potential interest to Leaders.²⁸ Reflecting on decades of often painful experience, participants emphasized that ODA should be a means to other ends, beyond the standard goals of poverty alleviation and economic growth. These other objectives needed to be considered more explicitly so that the debate could be re-framed to focus on the most appropriate problem on which to apply a reoriented approach to “development cooperation”. In other words, ODA would be just one of the tools deployed to address specific issues in areas such as health, climate change, agricultural trade or the particular challenges facing low-income countries under stress (LICUS).

The emergence of new donors, foundations and global funds calls for new institutional arrangements to ensure coordination and harmonization. ODA is currently fractured; there are too many ODA providers with a multiplicity of objectives, doing too many things, in too many countries. Given the likelihood that ODA levels will remain flat or even decline, government funding needs increasingly to be leveraged to partner with private funds, with a balance being struck between performance- and need-based approaches to allocation.

Participants noted that ODA is the biggest pool of discretionary resources spent by many donor countries, which makes it vulnerable to appropriation for other purposes. The most obvious example is the extent to which the security dimension has become central in the development agenda. Security is a justification for ODA and vice versa, in the context of the squeeze on ODA funds. Furthermore, conventional ODA criteria often do not apply in failing and fragile states. Perhaps most disturbingly, there is a sense of mutual “corruption” in the existing ODA system. Recipients do not have an empowered voice – they can’t say “no” – while donors have no incentive to tailor their efforts to meet local needs and sensitivities. Recipient and donor alike “enable” each other’s bad behaviour.

Although the thrust of this discussion was to explore how best to re-frame ODA to make it more attractive to leaders as a potential field of action, it had the added benefit of laying bare some of the more striking pathologies shaping global development issues.

The Princeton meeting on financing global public goods examined in more detail a specific (and quite trendy) aspect of the development conundrum. Aptly enough, the conversation began with matters of definition. The basic question was whether having a clear conceptual sense of the nature of global public goods would make them easier to deal with, thereby adding to the toolkit which could be used to build effective development assistance.

The notion of “global” public goods builds on the definitions of public good developed by the economist Paul Samuelson in the early 1950s.²⁹ Samuelson suggested that the essential characteristics which differentiated a private good from a “pure” public good were non-excludability (once the good has been produced, its benefits or harm accrue to all) and non-rivalry (any one person’s consumption of the public good has no effect on the amount of it available for others). Other concepts also linked to the idea of public goods are externalities (situations where the costs or benefits of any good or action are not reflected in the price of the good itself, and the cost of impacts is transferred from the actors directly responsible to others) and free riders (users who derive benefit from but do not finance the supply of goods). Since Samuelson’s original work, the debate over the “purity” of public goods in the real world has led to the recognition that factors such as government intervention or agreements between private agents are usually involved in their production or use, and merit active policy consideration.

The application of the notion of public goods to the international context brings with it even more definitional anguish. Without venturing further into the thickets of economic theory, and to provide a somewhat clearer sense of what global public goods might be in practice, however, the following list of five examples of different sorts of global public goods might help:

• the conservation of biodiversity,
  
  
• mitigation of climate change,
  
  
• the generation of knowledge for the production of HIV/AIDS vaccines,
  
  
• operational prevention of violent conflicts (otherwise characterized as peace and security), and
  
  
• the maintenance of international financial security.³⁰

Within the last decade, academics and policymakers have shown rapidly accelerating interest in applying public goods theory to these and similar activities, especially with a view to developing new ways of financing them.

The Princeton workshop focused on this financial aspect and the potential for leaders to play a role in advancing the cause of providing global public goods. As mentioned in Chapter 4, participants concluded that financing global public goods probably should not appear on an initial L-20 agenda, but that related questions could usefully be tackled by leaders later in the process, assuming it took hold. The value of the Princeton discussion, however, lay in the attempts to apply a fairly formal conceptual framework to a messy world. In the end, the background piece for the meeting struck a hopeful note. It suggested that the implementation and participation “deficits” afflicting the current system of international cooperation were subject to trends which may result in their being overcome. These trends should be built upon through a new cooperative system based on: investment thinking; fairness; competition in service delivery; clear responsibility and accountability; and continuity of effort so as to allow cooperation initiatives to mature.³¹ All participants in the workshop may not have shared this perspective, but the intellectual rigour promoted by the debate around financing global public goods materially enrichened their exchanges.³²

The Maastricht workshop on science and technology for development also broke new ground because it assembled in the same room an unusual combination of “hard scientists” and international relations policy experts. The very nature of the subject matter ensured a wide-ranging, somewhat unfocussed discussion, a characteristic which led eventually to the conclusion that leaders would find it difficult to deal with. In the course of this exploration of the “knowledge divide”, however, several interesting points were raised about what might be termed the structural aspects of international science and technology.

First, participants noted that one of the impacts of accelerating globalization has been to blur the distinctions between North and South. Outsourcing from developed economies is leading to growth in S&T employment in the developing world. Brazil, India and China have adopted directive national policies similar to those of developed countries 30 years ago, but are doing so in the context of a much more integrated, market-driven world economy. Although the most evident capability gap remains between developed and developing countries, South/South alliances are being built in the S&T field, and this trend holds great promise.³³

Second, participants were concerned to encourage clarity of purpose in terms of the rationale for investing in the S&T area in developing countries. The first choice to be made was the relative effort to be devoted to building capacity to increase productivity versus directing resources to solving specific problems. Another manifestation of this choice was whether to fund systemic improvements to the education system in developing countries as opposed to providing support for “big science” projects. Generally, participants cast doubt on the advisability of contributing to scientific monumentalism, but recognized that both capacity building and specific S&T-related problem-solving should be taken on at the same time.³⁴ This conclusion mirrored the conclusions reached in the project workshops on health and pandemic management. In that field as well, the choice sometimes seemed to be between supporting specific initiatives (e.g. vaccine development) rather than improving the health care system as a whole in developing countries, and the conclusion was that both approaches need to be sustained. Another similarity was the discussion of how to maintain the presence of qualified personnel in the South. Although no definitive answers were forthcoming, the human resource challenge in both S&T and health fields was undeniable.

A third structural element was the current international regime governing trade and intellectual property. The Southern view is that the World Trade Organization and its agreement on the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (TRIPS) put them in a frustrating legal box. Intellectual property rights issues run through all of the steps on the S&T spectrum – research and development, design, manufacturing and production – and insufficient allowance has been made for the specific concerns of developing countries. The drive to expand protection of intellectual property rights across many sectors (e.g. agriculture, pharmaceuticals and software) has significant implications for the South, many of them adverse. Some participants called for a new international agency or vehicle to focus on intellectual property rights in the development context. For these participants, the World Intellectual Property Organization is a conservative barrier; it promotes the status quo, not the active use of intellectual property.³⁵

Finally, the concept of “re-framing” surfaced once more. Just as with “development” as an over-arching concern, so “the furthering of science and technology” as an end in itself was difficult to market. Participants generally agreed that emphasis needed to be put on the S&T components of global issues such as avian flu, energy security and climate change. In a world where the competition for financial support was intense and the public (and political) attention span was small and shrinking, scientific concerns will be more influential if they are placed in the context of specific global challenges.

Endnotes

¹ See for example Rosenau’s much more expansive conception of effective world players – “Viewed in the context of proliferating centres of authority, the global stage is thus dense with actors, large and small, formal and informal, economic and social, political and cultural, national and transnational, international and subnational, aggressive and peaceful, liberal and authoritarian, who collectively form a highly complex system of global governance.” James N. Rosenau, Governance in a New Global Order. In: David Held, Anthony McGrew, Governing Globalization: Power, Authority and Global Governance, Polity Press, 2002, p. 73.

² Paul Martin, A Global Answer to Global Problems. Foreign Affairs, May/June, http://www.foreignaffairs.org/ p. 2.

³ Text adapted from a speech given on October 31, 2003, reprinted by YaleGlobal Online. Retrieved June 5, 2006 from http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/article.print?id=2734.

⁴ For a comprehensive text on the definition, history, elements and future prospects of globalization, see David Held, Anthony McGrew, David Goldblatt, Jonathan Perraton, Global Transformations. Stanford University Press, 1999. Interestingly, the authors conclude their extensive survey optimistic about the future for democracy and even for the role of the nation state.

⁵ Barry Carin, Gordon Smith, Making Change Happen at the Global Level. L-20 project paper, 2003, http://www.l20.org/, p. 3; Waterloo, p. 1; Bellagio, p. 2; Ottawa I, p. 18.

⁶ Oxford, p. 2.

⁷ New York, p. 4.

⁸ Alexandria, p. 6.

⁹ Mexico City, p. 1.

¹⁰ Laurie Garrett, Leaders Summit on Global Infectious Disease: Toward an L-20? L-20 project paper, 2005, http://www.l20.org/ pp. 1 and 2.

¹¹ Victoria, p. 6.

¹² Michael Zurn, Global Governance and Legitimacy Problems. L-20 project paper, 2004, http://www.l20.org/ p. 27. Zurn suggests (op cit., p. 19) – “The fur­ther international institutions intervene in formerly national issues, the more they will be confronted with questions regarding their legitimacy”. He also notes (op cit., p. 29) – “The more intrusive these international institutions become, the more justified and intense the demands will be for their democratization”.

¹³ For example, Bellagio, p. 3; Ottawa I, p. 14; Ottawa II, p. 4.

¹⁴ “The G-20’s initial processes have been all wrong. Its origins in the G-7 reduce its legitimacy; its membership is not fully representative; its mandate is much too narrow; and its procedures lack provisions for non-governmental participation, accountability or transparency. As at present constituted, it is unlikely to lead anywhere. Its very existence deflects energies from more appropriate and hopeful processes and agendas.” Gerry Helleiner, Developing Countries, Global Financial Governance and the Group of Twenty: A Note, 2001, retrieved June 7, 2006 from http://www.globaleconomicgovernance.org/docs/Helleiner%20on%20G20.pdf. On the other hand, see the G-20 website for the group’s accomplishments, http://www.g20.org/Public/index.jsp.

¹⁵ Carin and Smith, op cit., p. 7.

¹⁶ Washington, DC, p. 6.

¹⁷ The idea that an L-20 would gain legitimacy through its effectiveness was repeated throughout the workshops, strongly in the Ottawa launch meeting (Ottawa I, p. 26), but then frequently thereafter.

¹⁸ Waterloo, p. 6.

¹⁹ The term “civil society” is subject to considerable debate, although many use it as a synonym for “non-governmental organizations”. Most project participants seem to have meant NGOs when they used the phrase “civil society”. The London School of Economics Centre for Civil Society’s working definition illustrates the sprawly nature of the idea. “Civil society refers to the arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values. In theory, its institutional forms are distinct from those of the state, family and market, though in practice, the boundaries between state, civil society, family and market are often complex, blurred and negotiated. Civil society commonly embraces a diversity of spaces, actors and institutional forms, varying in their degree of formality, autonomy and power. Civil societies are often populated by organisations such as registered charities, development nongovernmental organisations, community groups, women’s organisations, faith-based organisations, professional associations, trade unions, self-help groups, social movements, business associations, coalitions and advocacy groups." For a useful account of the evolution of the concept of “global civil society”, see Helmut Anheier, Marlies Glasius, Mary Kaldor (eds) Global Civil Society 2001. Oxford University Press, 2001, especially Chapter 1.

²⁰ Bellagio, pp. 2, 3.

²¹ Ottawa I, p. 15.

²² Ottawa I, p. 31.

²³ Oxford, p. 9.

²⁴ San Jose, p. 6.

²⁵ Alexandria, p. 5.

²⁶ Princeton II, p. 1; Inge Kaul, Pedro Conceicao, The L-20: an Important Beginning of a New Era of International Cooperation? L-20 project paper, 2006, http://www.l20.org/ pp. 1, 3, 4.

²⁷ The following description of the Arria Formula is taken from a useful summary by James Paul which can be found on the website of the Global Policy Forum – retrieved July 4, 2006 from http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/mtgsetc/arria.htm . Paul’s description of the “birth” of the Formula is instructive because it arose from a practical Security Council requirement for information. “The formula is named for Amb. Diego Arria of Venezuela who devised it. In 1992, during the crisis in former Yugoslavia, a Bosnian priest came to New York and asked to meet with various Council members individually. Only Ambassador Arria agreed to meet him. Ambassador Arria was so impressed with the priest’s story that he felt all Council members should hear it too. Obviously, it was impossible to get the Council to agree to hear this testimony in its official sessions. So Arria simply invited Council members to gather over coffee in the Delegates’ Lounge. Many attended, the meeting was a great success and the Arria Formula was born.”

²⁸ Petra, pp. 1, 2.

²⁹ The following description of the theoretical background to GPGs is taken from Francisco Sagasti, Keith Bezanson, Financing and Providing Global Goods: Expectations and Prospects. Institute of Development Studies, Sussex, 2001, pp. ii–ix.

³⁰ See the case studies on these five GPGs in Sagasti and Bezanson, op cit., pp. 67 et seq.

³¹ Kaul and Conceicao, op cit., pp. 8–9. For a more lengthy and detailed discussion, see Inge Kaul, Pedro Conceicao (eds), The New Public Finance: Responding to Global Challenges. Oxford University Press, 2006.

³² The discussion also included interesting exchanges on the role of the private sector, similar to those which arose at the Alexandria workshop on safe drinking water and sanitation and the San Jose workshop on infectious diseases. In all three cases, participants divided over the extent to which the private sector should engage in activities traditionally left to governments.

³³ Maastricht, p. 4.

³⁴ Maastricht, p. 3.

³⁵ Maastricht, pp. 4, 5. For an account of the current negotiations in the TRIPS area, see the WTO website at http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e.htm.

Document(s) 9 of 21