The G20—Background
Twenty People Commanding 6.7 Billion. Pittsburgh G20 Resistance Project. 2009. “Throughout its existence, the G-20 has been an aggressive and unapologetic supporter of free trade policies that require countries to open their markets to cheap imports, and generate violent and rapid restructuring and instability as local economies are steamrolled by global production shifts and market fluctuations.”
The G20: The New Ruling Aristocracy of the World? Shawn Hattingh. MRzine, November 15, 2007. “The G20 only cares about economic growth for the richest companies on earth; they really don't care about us -- we are inconsequential to them until we rise up in protest.”
The long battle against neo-liberalism. Damian Grenfell. Arena Magazine, No. 82 (April 2006). The “origins of the G-20 demonstrate how it has become one avenue for elite capitalist interests to entrench and consolidate a global market rather than signaling a move towards a more inclusive and therefore potentially more equitable trade forum.”
On the contradictions of the New International Financial Architecture: another procrustean bed for emerging markets? Susanne Soederberg. Third World Quarterly, Volume 23, Number 4, 1 August 2002. [Subscription access through Informaworld and IngentaConnect .] “The New International Financial Architecture (NIFA) was created by powerful G-7 countries in response to the growing volatility in the developing world.”
The G20 and Democracy
Democratizing the Global Financial Architecture. Arnie Alpert, Jessica Walker Beaumont. PeaceWork, Issue 391 (December 2008 - January 2009). “Under the existing G20 structure, just as with the Wall Street bailout, changes to the global financial architecture will be designed in the interests of the large financial institutions which dominate the world economy.”
The poor and the G20. Patrice Barrat. openDemocracy, December 9, 2008. “From the World Economic Forum . . . to G20 that has been held in Washington, it seems that the rich feel they are the only ones concerned and the only ones entitled to have their say.”
Markets, Politics and Globalization: Can the Global Economy be Civilized? Gerry Helleiner. The Tenth Raúl Prebisch Lecture, Geneva, 11 December 2000. Working Papers, Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto. “Needless to say, current governance arrangements for the global economy do not even remotely reflect the democratic principles that most analysts and countries espouse . . . .”
The G20 and Human Rights
G-20 must set the example and clean up their human rights record. Amnesty International, May 28, 2009. “Amnesty International’s Secretary General has called on the G-20 grouping that brings together the world’s leading economies to lead by example and show real commitment to human rights.”
A Human Rights Analysis of the G20 Communique: Recent Awareness of the 'Human Cost' Is Not Quite Enough. Sakiko Fukuda-Parr, Margot E. Salomon. Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Policy, May 4, 2009. “The crisis, its human impact, and the proposed solutions are . . . issues of international human rights law . . . .”
G20: The summit must not forget human rights. Kenneth Roth. The Guardian (London), April 2, 2009. “The global economic crisis is worsening human rights abuses – while distracting world leaders from addressing them.”
The G-20 and Labor
ITUC/TUAC evaluation of the outcome of the G20 London summit. International Trade Union Confederation. April 2, 2009. Governments “must begin work on a framework of governance that changes the failed paradigm of market fundamentalism that has dominated policy and major international institutions for the past three decades.”
Global Labor's G-20 Agenda. Max Fraser. The Nation, March 26, 2009. While “G-20 leaders fiddle and Rome burns, the international trade union movement has laid out an ambitious set of principles for addressing the worst global downturn since the Great Depression.”
The G20 Summit and Unions. Tim Newman. Labor is Not a Commodity, March 26, 2009. “As working people around the world are facing the consequences of this crisis, with their own proposals for the G-20.”
Trade Unions to G-20: Half Measures Will Not Fix Global Economy. James Parks. AFL-CIO Now Blog, March 25, 2009. “As the G-20 governments get set to meet next week in London, where they will discuss strategies for pulling the global economy out of this recession, trade unions are demanding leaders of the world’s top economies take strong actions—including spending more of their nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) on addressing the global financial crisis.”
Statement to the London G20 Summit: Global Unions London Declaration. Global Unions. Submitted March 23, 2009. “The global trade union movement . . . calls on G20 Leaders, working with other governments and international institutions, to develop a five-point strategy, to first tackle the crisis and then build a fairer and more sustainable world economy for future generations.”
TUAC/ITUC evaluation of the outcome of the G20 summit on financial markets and the world economy. International Trade Union Confederation, November 18, 2008. “Working people require a seat at the table in these meetings and institutions. They have little confidence that bankers and governments meeting behind closed doors will get it right this time.”
G20 Trade Union Leaders Meet with IFIs, Heads of State and Call for Vigorous Action to Counter the Global Economic Crisis. International Trade Union Confederation, November 15, 2008. “Trade union leaders from the G20 countries met with the heads of the IMF. . . [etc.] in advance of the G20 financial crisis summit taking place in Washington.”
The Global Unions “Washington Declaration.” “Trade Union statement to ‘G20 Crisis Summit.” International Trade Union Confederation, November 2008. “The G20 governments must acknowledge the urgent need to begin work on a more inclusive, just and democratic system for the governance of global markets. Trade unions must have a seat at the table and be part of the negotiations . . . .”
The G-20 and Poverty
G20 and Global Poverty. Neil Watkins. Foreign Policy in Focus, April 8, 2009. The impact of the April 2009 summit “summit on issues relating to development, low-income countries, and the international financial institutions” is, at best, mixed.
Hunger Eclipsed At G-20 Summit. Nancy Roman. World Food Programme, News, April 3, 2009. “So where are we in the fight against global hunger now that the London G-20 summit is over? Pretty much where we were the day before it started . . . .”
What Happened at the G20? Initial Analysis of the London Summit. Oxfam International. Oxfam Briefing Note, April 3, 2009. “This paper provides an independent assessment of the G20 process and the three documents released on the day of the summit.”
G-20 and Hunger: 10 Must-Reads. World Food Programme. News, April 2, 2009. “With the G-20 London summit over, world leaders now have a plan to address the global economic crisis. As they implement the plan, they should remember that the crisis is having a huge impact on the world’s poor and hungry.
Bread for the World Urges G-20 Leaders to Include Food Security, Economic Recovery for Poor Countries. Bread for the World. Press release, April 1, 2009. "We hope the G-20 will seize this opportunity to leverage a lasting, global commitment to end widespread hunger and reduce poverty."
A New Life for the IMF: Capitalizing on the Crisis. Robert Weisman. Multinational Monitor, vol. 30, no. 2 (March/April 2009). In April 2009 the G-20 countries committed “to expand massively the International Monetary Fund” to aid developing countries,” but the “extent to which new resources will be made available . . . remains uncertain,” and critics warn the IMF “is requiring countries to implement contradictory policies.”
G20’s pledges will worsen crisis for the poor. Tony Iltis. Green Left, March 21, 2009. “It is clear that no solution to the crisis that will benefit the poor and ordinary people globally will emerge from the G20.”
$250,000 GLW Fighting Fund: G20 to save capitalism? Peter Boyle. Green Left, March 13, 2009. “We’ve got two goals in the G20’, President Barak Obama said of the approaching London summit.” the “first is to revive the capitalist system and the second is to agree on new regulations to save capitalism from itself.”
The G-20 and the Economic Crisis
A Global Recovery for a Global Recession. Joseph E. Stiglitz, June 24, 2009. The Nation, July 13, 2009. “The international community should realize . . . that much more needs to be done [to respond to the crisis in developing countries] than so far has been undertaken by the G-20.”
What Was the Point of the G-20 Meeting? Immanuel Wallerstein. Immanuel Wallerstein website, April 15, 2009. “The point of the meeting . . . was to show their internal publics that they were ‘doing something’ about the calamitous world economic situation when in fact they were doing nothing that would in any significant way save the sinking ship.”
The summit with no answers. Lee Sustar. Green Left, April 4, 2009. “The G20 will offer platitudes about international economic cooperation while it’s really straining to prevent the fragmentation of the world economy into rival trading blocks.”
G20 and Inter-capitalist Conflicts. Joseph Halevi, MRzine, April 7, 2009. “Not one participant among the G20 has provided a compelling analysis of the crisis and a framework worth discussing.”
No solution at London G20 Summit. Peter Taaffe. The Socialist, April 7, 2009. “‘They are not talking about us. They don't care about people like us.’ This is the verdict on the London capitalist G20 summit of a worker occupying, together with others, the Visteon car parts firm in Enfield.”
A G20 Meeting for Naught. Eric Toussaint and Damien Millet. Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt, April 2, 2009. “Those 20 industrialized and emergent countries (G20) are meeting to find solutions to the crisis. But long before the end of the summit, it is clear that they will not rise to the challenge.”
G20: Their Agenda and Ours. Josep María Antentas, Esther Vivas. International Viewpoint, April 2009. “If anything characterized the recent G20 summit in London it was the grandiloquence of the declarations of its participants, bent on giving historical importance to their decisions and searching for phrases that could make an impact.”
G20 and the Global Economic Crisis. InterAction: A United Voice for Global Change. Policy Brief, March 1, 2009. “We urge the G20 to take bold measures to address the deepening global economic crisis in support of international social justice.”
Meltdown South. David Ransom. New Internationalist, January 2009, Issue 419. “So far, the ‘credit crunch’ and ‘economic downturn have been framed largely in terms of the Global North. But the Global South matters just as much, if not more.”
G20 defends capitalism. Industrial Worker, December 2008, vol. 105, no. 9. The G20 meeting of November 2008 “was hailed as a landmark meeting in international cooperation to deal with the global financial crisis,” but the “joint statement was little more than a defense of capitalism.”
Fidel Castro on G20 summit: “Begging the wolf.” Fidel Castro. Green Left. November 22, 2008. The 2008 declaration of the G20 “is simply a pious appeal to the ethic of the most powerful country on Earth . . . at the time of economic globalization; it’s like begging the wolf not to eat up Little Red Riding Hood.”
The G20 and the Environment
The challenge of climate change: We need an eco-revolution. Simon Butler. Green Left, April 18, 2009. “The April 2 G20 summit brought together the leaders of some of the world’s most economically significant countries. . . . intent on working out a rescue plan for the capitalist system . . . that is killing the planet and condemning billions of people to poverty and oppression.”
G20 forgets the environment. George Monbiott, Guardian (London) April 2, 2009 “Climate breakdown, peak oil and resource depletion all dwarf the financial crisis in financial and humanitarian terms.”
Toward a Global Green Recovery: Recommendations for Immediate G-20 Action. Ottmar Edenhofer, Lord Nicholas Stern. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, April 2, 2009. ”The need for a substantial fiscal boost in the short term provides a great opportunity to undertake projects with a high social return, at a time when inputs are relatively cheap and underutilised resources and workers are available.”
Lost Opportunity: Global Warming Getting Sidelined at G-20. Stacy Feldman. SolveClimate.com, April 1, 2009. “"I haven't heard anything that suggests the green recovery and climate change are a major part of the [G20] agenda," said Professor Robert Watson, chief scientific adviser for the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.”
The G20 and Women
The G20 Summit—What Does It Mean for Women in Africa? Charlotte Sutherland. Consultancy Africa Intelligence. Gender Issues in Africa Newsletter. April 2009. “The latest G20 summit was held on 2 April . . . . Despite the broad and essential character of these economic matters, women’s ability to contribute to the world economy barely featured in the discussions and decision-making . . . . Only two out of the twenty leaders who attended were women.”
Q&A: "Women Need a Bigger Voice at the G20 Summit" Interview with Rosa G. Lizarde, from the Global Call to Action against Poverty. Inter Press Service News Agency. “Activists are calling for an economic bailout plan for women and demanding that their voices be heard at the decision-making table ahead of the G20 summit of the world's biggest economies in London on Apr. 2.”
Globalization & Women’s Work. UN Platform for Action Committee Manitoba. “More often than not economic globalization has led to increased workloads, lower pay, and more stress” for women.
Links compiled by Joe Hurley, Rachel Masilamani, Tom Twiss, and Eve Wider. Special thanks to Charles D’Adamo at the Alternative Press Center for his assistance.