Breaking Global Deadlocks
For three and a half years, CIGI in partnership with the Centre for Global Studies (CFGS) at the University of Victoria and a network of think-tanks around the world, has focused on a central challenge of international governance - "In a globalized, post-unipolar world, how can we reshape the architecture of international relations to deal effectively with world-scale problems such as global warming?"
This work has been based on several premises:
• Existing institutions and processes have proven incapable of breaking deadlocks on key global issues such as climate change.
• International institutions, processes and mechanisms are limited by their portfolio boundaries. Global problems are cross-sectoral (going beyond the substantive mandates of individual ministers or organizations) and long-term (going beyond the electoral mandate of most governments).
• Governments and government leaders have a unique and indispensable role to play in resolving critical global issues. In the right circumstances, leaders can transcend narrow national interests.
• The evolution of an existing informal intergovernmental process is more likely to occur than the comprehensive reform of existing organizations or the creation of new institutions.
• At Summits, leaders undertake a range of activities - they commit to act in their own countries, they commit their ministers to act in concert with other countries' counterparts, they agree to work together in international organizations, and they agree to collaborate on specific global or regional challenges. Occasionally they create new entities.
• A leader-level forum based on expanding the existing G-8 Summit group to 14 could be the vehicle through which key global issues could be addressed and resolved. [The new Leaders-14 (L14) could consist of - the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan, Russia, China, Brazil, India, South Africa, Mexico and Egypt.]
• Processes would be established for L14 regional powers to consult others in their region.
Project History
On the basis of the G8+6 consensus (the Gleneagles 5 plus a major Islamic country), a second phase of meetings under the heading "Breaking Global Deadlocks" was initiated. Breaking Global Deadlocks (BGD) was a quasi simulation exercise - a reality-based series of meetings designed to provide definitive "proof of concept" to the Summit or Leaders Forum approach. CFGS managed the process in partnership with CIGI, the Brookings Institution, Tsinghua University, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Leaders Project.
The technique employed was to involve former government officials and subject experts in a quasi G8 Leaders Summit preparatory process in order to demonstrate the merits of the approach and encourage those in power to implement it. We attempted to together develop a pragmatic solution to the global warming deadlock, modeled after the summit preparatory process supporting the G-8. This process includes multiple preparatory meetings during which political "sherpas" (leaders' personal representatives) from each country refine the problem being addressed and debate possible solutions. The sherpas produce a draft communiqué, which forms the basis for discussion and decision by heads of government.
The first meeting in the BGD series took place at Tsinghua University in Beijing on December 5-6, 2006. CFGS convened representatives from prestigious and influential think tanks and universities in the L-14 countries. The background material included three notes provided by the OECD Secretariat (on climate change, energy security, and the Doha Round), and papers by Dr. David Victor and Dr. Ted Parson suggesting a framework and elements for a "grand bargain". The symposium explored the global context, the requisite process characteristics (in this case, process is substance), and the criteria and structure for constructing a global "package deal".
>Conference materials are available here.
The second meeting took place at Langdon Hall, near Waterloo, Canada on January 28-30, 2007. This session, attended by retired G-8 Sherpas and their counterparts from the other 6 countries in the L-14, focused on a draft "non chair non text" outlining an inventory of potential elements for the grand bargain package. The agenda replicated the proceedings at a summit sherpa meeting where background materials and "national interest" position papers (from the 14 countries) are the basis for debating options for inclusion on a summit agenda.
>A chart of the draft which emerged from the Langdon Hall meeting can be found here.
The third meeting in Paris on March 12-13, 2007, was hosted by the OECD and chaired by Angel Gurria, OECD Secretary-General. This meeting was a Chatham House rules meeting where serving officials from the 14 countries joined with selected participants from the preceding two meetings to refine the elements for a practicable grand bargain package.
>More information on this event is available here.
Next Steps
The second phase of the Breaking Global Deadlocks series will expand upon the Grand Bargain produced in the preparatory meetings.
There are 4 meetings scheduled with each designed to address a specific target group, albeit with representatives of other target groups present at each event. The four meetings will demonstrate that a well prepared and more inclusive summit could help break existing global deadlocks and result in win win outcomes for the parties involved. This second phase will also be used to disseminate information accumulated over the course of the project and update the relevant target groups of advancements made.
Phase II Meetings:
1. Breaking Global Deadlocks: From Ideas to Actions- Targeting: think tanks and research institutions.
September 2007 (Poets Cove, Canada)
2. Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Side Event - Targeting: luminary politicians and senior officials
September 2007 (New York)
3. Influential Media Opinion Leaders - Targeting: Media Opinion Leaders from 14 countries
October 2007 (Toronto, Canada)
4. Breaking Global Deadlocks: Who's At The Summit- Targeting: Influential Democrat and Republican political advisers.
November 2007 (White Oak Plantation, Florida)