GLOBALIZATION AND SUMMIT REFORM - An Experiment in International Governance

This book describes the 3-year-long “L-20” project, whose objective was to develop a method of breaking the political deadlocks that too often prevent progress on critical global issues. The proposed L-20 would include leaders from the existing G-8 countries and key regional powers such as China, Brazil, India, South Africa, and Egypt.

Peter C. Heap

Springer/IDRC 2008
ISBN 978-0-387-76531-0
e-ISBN 978-1-55250-395-9
126 pp.

This book describes and analyzes the 3-year-long “L-20” project, whose objective was to develop a method of breaking the political deadlocks that too often prevent progress on critical global issues. The proposed L-20 would include leaders from the existing G-8 countries, augmented by key regional powers such as China, Brazil, India, South Africa, and Egypt.

The book traces the origins and findings of the project, which generated a broad array of cutting-edge research and over 20 substantive, action-oriented workshops involving hundreds of experts and practitioners around the world. The workshop series examined in detail the operational possibilities for a “Leaders Group” addressing a range of issues, including infectious disease control, climate change/global warming, energy security, nuclear proliferation, management of international financial crises, and the provision of safe drinking water and sanitation, to name just a few. In the context of a rapidly globalizing world, the book addresses the classical problems of international governance – How do we prevent war? How do we feed the hungry? How do we house the homeless? How do we cure the sick and safeguard the healthy from threats such as pandemics and global warming?

Featuring a Foreword by Dr Gordon Smith, an Afterword by the Right Honourable Paul Martin, former Prime Minister of Canada, and a glossary of terms, Globalization and Summit Reform provides a unique, insiders’ perspective on the process of international governance and its future prospects.

A course outline incorporating material from and about the L-20 project has been developed and can be accessed from the project's website, at www.l20.org/learning.php.

THE AUTHOR

Peter C. Heap is Senior Research Associate at Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria in Victoria, Canada. He is former Chief Treaty Negotiator and Assistant Deputy Minister, Government of British Columbia; former Foreign Service Officer and Assistant Deputy Minister, Government of Canada; and former Director, Governability Research Program, Institute for Research on Public Policy.