[corp-focus] The G8: Humanitarian Failure and Making the World Safe for Corporate Power

[robert weissman]

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The G8: Humanitarian Failure and Making the World Safe for Corporate Power
By Robert Weissman
July 9, 2008

It's hard to dismiss the temptation to write off the G8 meetings as a 
meaningless talkfest.

On the other hand, when the political leaders of the most powerful 
countries get together and issue joint statements, it may be worth 
looking at what these planetary stewards have in mind. This is 
particularly true at a time when new global crises -- skyrocketing oil 
prices, the spike in food prices, the impact of the U.S. recession and 
accelerating global warming -- are added to ongoing public health 
disasters and persistent global poverty.

Is it too much to expect the G8 leaders (the political leaders of the 
United States, Japan, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and 
Russia) to offer something meaningful in response to these problems?

With the G8 meeting in Hokkaido, Japan just concluded, the answer 
apparently is, yes.

G8 failures seem to fall into two categories: first, promise to do too 
little, and then renege on commitments made; second, promote harmful 
policies and projects.

In the first category comes the G8's statement on global public health. 
Following aggressive lobbying by public health groups, the G8 agreed to 
reiterate its commitment to provide universal treatment for HIV/AIDS. 
But the rich countries have not agreed to put the money on the table to 
achieve this objective. “The AIDS crisis in Africa is an emergency, and 
reaching universal access by 2010 will require a quadrupling of spending 
over current levels," explains Masaki Inaba of the Africa Japan Forum. 
"A restating of existing commitments is not a sufficient response by the 
G8."

The dominant public health need in the world's poorest countries is to 
restore the public health systems decimated by decades of International 
Monetary Fund and World Bank "structural adjustment" programs. The G8 
leaders said only that they aim to "work toward" poor countries 
achieving the World Health Organization (WHO) target of 2.3 professional 
health workers per 1,000 people. (By contrast, according to WHO data, 
the United States has about 31 health workers per 1,000 people, and 56 
per 1,000 if you include the category of "health management and support 
workers.")

Also in the first category is the pathetic G8 statement on climate 
change. Dragged down most of all by the anti-leadership of the United 
States, the G8 announced a commitment to a 50 percent reduction in 
carbon emissions by 2050. Well, a sort-of commitment.

The best science says the world needs at least an 80 percent reduction 
from 1990 emissions levels by 2050, and very likely more, so the G8 
commitment is totally inadequate on its face.

But the G8 position is even more lame than it first appears. A statement 
from an environmental coalition including Friends of the Earth 
International explained the key flaws. "First, the G8 formula is a 
global cut," not imposing particular responsibility on the rich, high 
carbon-polluting countries. Second, "the cut has no clear baseline. It 
was revealing that in announcing it, Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo 
Fukuda initially said it was from 1990 levels, then had to take back 
that statement and subsequently mentioned a 2000 baseline." Third, the 
statement is not binding, and "indeed, the G8 announcement reinforces 
the G8 as a site for climate action that rivals the UN process [for 
climate change negotiations] and effectively subverts it."

In the second category of doing direct harm come many of the G8 
recommendations in the declarations on the global economy and on food 
security.

The G8 leaders call for opening and deregulating financial markets, even 
as it is clear that financial deregulation has helped create the current 
global financial crisis.

The G8 leaders call for stronger patent, copyright and trademark 
monopolies. Remarkably, in a document purporting to address the key 
issues in the global economy, they make space to encourage rapid 
negotiation and completion of an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a 
deal that may hinder or criminalize peer-to-peer file sharing, require 
Internet Service Providers to limit consumers' web access, and interfere 
with parallel trade in goods (like Canadian drugs brought into the 
United States), among other problems.

The G8 leaders call for completion of the Doha Round negotiations at the 
World Trade Organization, aiming to further deepen reliance on a global 
food trading system that has driven the poorest people off their land 
and undermined developing countries' ability to feed themselves.

The G8 leaders also call for more aid for food-importing, poor countries 
-- to be delivered through IMF lending facilities that typically require 
countries to adopt more of the market fundamentalist mandates that have 
driven people off the land and undermined governments' capacity to 
assist the poor and pursue expansionary economic policies.

"I'm pleased to report that we've had significant success," said 
President Bush as the G8 summit concluded.

Not exactly.


Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Multinational
Monitor, <http://www.multinationalmonitor.org> and director of Essential
Action <http://www.essentialaction.org>.

(c) Robert Weissman

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