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From G7 To G8:
Evolution, Role and Documentation of a Unique Institution

Peter I. Hajnal

Columbia International Affairs Online

April 1998

 

Summit Documentation

The two main types of G7/G8 summit documents are economic and political. From the outset of the G7, summits have always issued a single declaration (see the following discussion of the summit communiqué) covering a whole gamut of economic subjects and supported at times by an annex (as at London I and in Williamsburg) or a background document (as in Halifax.) The political documents (see discussion of the political declaration and chairman's statement below) have, by contrast, been much less consistent and uniform.

The principal document of each summit is the communiqué (prior to Naples 1994, final communiqué), often called declaration or economic declaration. The subjects of the communique' range from exchange rates, interest rates, inflation, unemployment and economic growth to North-South and East-West relations, the environment and sustainable development, Third World debt, international organizations, and any other issue on the agenda. Defarges comments that "[f]inal declarations resemble Jacques Prévert's inventories or Jorge Luis Borges' lists: they can include the whole world. 95 Whyman, too, notes that "[t]he communique' has grown into a long, unwieldy 'Christmas tree' with each country adding its cherished special interest 'ornament'. " 96 In earlier years, the text of the communique' was often carried in full in The New York Times and other newspapers of record, but this practice was discontinued, partly because the communique's had grown progressively longer, and partly because the media lost interest in transmitting the documents in extenso. 97 On the other hand, with the ever-expanding use of the Internet, a number of World Wide Web sites publish full texts of communique's and other G7 documents; see Appendix for examples.

De Guttry, analyzing summit communiqués from an international-law point of view, isolates the following types of formulations the communique's contain: "international obligations for the participant states ..., [r]ecommendations to the G-7 member states [s]imple invitations to international organizations ... [and] acts relative to international organizations." Instruments available to the G7 to achieve implementation include direct formulation of recommendations, invitations to member states, delegation of various tasks to other organizations, and the establishment of new international bodies. 98

The preparation of the communiqué is a long, involved process occurring during the lead-up to each summit. The sherpas play a crucial role in the production of this document. They meet several times during the year--beginning usually in January--preparing the agenda and developing the draft of the communiqué for the forthcoming summit. Prior to the 1994 Naples Summit, for example, the sherpas met five times (five sherpa meetings are the maximum; only three such meetings were held before the Halifax Summit), starting with a discussion of the priorities and political constraints of their leaders, and moving on to shape the structure and preliminary agenda of the summit, isolating specific issues for discussion at the summit, beginning the draft of the communiqué and, at their final pre-summit meeting, completing the "thematic paper" that closely resembles the final draft. In Hodges's words, the thematic paper "simply serves as a quarry for the preparation of the final communiqués. 99 The actual final draft usually involves feverish last-minute preparations, well into the last night of the summit (beginning with 1994, the night before the release of the communiqué; in Naples, Halifax, and Lyon, the communiqué was released on the second day rather than at the end of the summit, in order to allow the last day to be devoted to P8 discussions with the Russians). This pattern changed with the 1997 Denver "Summit of the Eight" when the communiqué was again released at the end of the summit, this time reflecting the consensus of the Eight. In Naples, the sherpas stayed up until 5:30 AM to complete the final draft. The communiqué (which, according to a French viewpoint articulated by Defarges, "reflects a soft consensus," contrasted with Whyman's characterization of it as "a fully negotiated, binding statement" 100 ) is presented by the leader of the host country with considerable ceremony. In a departure from the practice at earlier summits where the host leader had read out the full text, at Houston in 1990 President Bush simply summarized it (with the evident approval of the guest leaders assembled on the stage) while the full text was being distributed to the media. This simplified procedure seems to have taken hold following Tokyo III where the leaders had signaled their intention to have more informal meetings and to produce shorter documents once again.

It is instructive to compare the summit communiqué with the communiqué issued by the OECD ministerial meeting usually held about a month before the summit. Owada remarks that "each year the communiqué of the OECD ministerial meeting offers a reference model for preparation of the summit's economic declaration. 101 For example, the communiqué of the OECD ministerial meeting held on 26-27 May 1997 raised many of the economic and political concerns that figure prominently in the Denver communiqué. 102

An interesting development occurred before the 1995 Halifax Summit when, on June 6, Canadian New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Nelson Rus released to the press a draft communiqué dated May 27, 1995. 103 Comparing the missing sections and especially the square-bracketed passages in the leaked draft with the appropriate parts of the agreed communiqué throws additional light on the preparatory process and the role of the leaders in working out final agreement on the main document of the Summit. There had been earlier instances of leaked draft communiqués but they attracted less attention. 104

The political or other non-economic declaration was, through 1993, the primary document "[r] anking second in the hierarchy of summit scripture." 105 The first such declaration was issued by the 1978 Bonn Summit, on the subject of the hUacking of aircraft. Prior to that time, because of initial French opposition to wider political and security discussions and Japanese reluctance to engage in those areas, "final declarations contained no political statements." 106 Tokyo 1(1979) also deplored air hijackings and issued a special statement on Indochinese refugees. Declarations have since ranged in subject from refugees and terrorism through East-West security concerns to drug trafficking and human rights. "In order to preserve the [essentially] economic nature of the [final] communiqué, these political statements have been issued as separate documents. " 107 This changed with the Denver Summit of the Eight, as discussed later.

Non-economic concerns of Venice 1980, expressed in special statements, dealt with Afghanistan and with the occupation of the U.S. Embassy in Teheran. In Ottawa 1981 there was a separate statement on terrorism. The main political statement of the 1982 Versailles Summit addressed the situation in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion. The 1983 "Williamsburg Declaration on Security", an important first summit initiative in this area, called for arms control and greater co-operation in that field between the Soviet Union and the G7; it also covered the stationing of U.S. missiles in Europe. In London 1984 there were declarations on democratic values, terrorism, and East-West security relations, as well as a statement on the Iran-Iraq conflict.

The 1985 Bonn Summit produced a political declaration commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the end of World War II. One of the political declarations at Tokyo in 1986 commented on the Chernobyl nuclear accident. "Venice II" (1987) brought forward statements on East-West relations, terrorism, the Iran-Iraq war, AIDS, and narcotic drugs. 30

The Paris Summit also issued declarations on human rights (to commemorate the bicentennial of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen), on China (following the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 1989), on East-West relations (especially in connection with post-Cold War democratization in Eastern and Central Europe), and on terrorism. The 1991 Summit produced a "Political Declaration" subtitled "Strengthening the International Order," a separate "Declaration on Conventional Arms Transfers and NBC [nuclear, biological and chemical] Non-proliferation" and a "Chairman's Statement (As Prepared)"in which British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd commented on the first two documents.

In 1992 in Munich the political declaration bore the subtitle "Shaping the New Partnership" and dealt with specific economic, political and security areas of the new partnership with countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the new independent states of the former Soviet Union, nuclear non-proliferation, and the further strengthening of the UN. In addition, there was a separate declaration on the crisis in the former Yugoslavia, and a "Chairman's Statement" (from German Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel) on problems and developments in the Nagorno-Karabakn region, the Baltic States, the Middle East, Iraq, Korea, China, the Mediterranean, Africa and Latin America, as well as questions of drugs and terrorism. The 1993 Tokyo political declaration, issued as usual during the second day of the summit, was entitled "Striving for a More Secure and Humane World." The declaration condemns Serbia and Croatia for their aggression in Bosnia and affirms human rights and nuclear nonproliferation, among other points.

Writing in early 1994, Putnam pointed out that the formerly "largely autonomous process of preparation of the summit 'political declarations' has been taken over by the 'G-7 political directors' in foreign offices outside the purview of the sherpas themselves. " 108 Soon afterward, starting with Naples in 1994, the political declaration was replaced by:

The chairman's statement, a type of summit document issued for the first time by the host leader on behalf of the P8, indicating Russia's increased role in the political discussion and drafted with Russian participation. This statement was released in 1994, 1995 and 1996 at the end of the summit, a day after rather than a day before the summit communiqué as had been the previous practice. Presumably the chairman's statement does not need to be as completely a consensus document as the summit communiqué is.

The Naples "Chairman's Statement [Political]" dealt with a number of issues ranging from Bosnia and the Israeli-Palestinian agreement, through North Korea and Rwanda, to the role of the UN and of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. Following the pattern set at Naples, the Halifax Summit, at its conclusion and at the "Political 8" level issued a Chairman's Statement, reaffirming the commitment of the P8 to multilateral engagement, to arms control and disarmament, to new approaches in dealing with environmental and other global challenges, and to fighting terrorism and other international crime. It also reviewed European achievements (the advance of democracy and market economy) and problems (especially Bosnia); the situation in the Middle East and Africa; the Asia-Pacific region; and the Americas. The main feature of the Halifax Chairman's Statement, though, was a thematic, generic approach to conflict prevention and resolution, rather than a regional focus. 109

The Lyon Summit's "Chairman's Statement" covered a broad range of global and regional issues of the type discussed earlier under "The Role and Agenda of the Summit." It also included a long supplementary section reviewing UN reforms since the Halifax Summit, with a catalog of achievements and a commitment by the Eight to "continue and reinforce our efforts to improve the functioning of the UN in the economic and social fields and its impact on development ... [and to] continue to work in partnership with other members to complete processes underway ... and initiate further processes as required." 110

In addition to the communiqué and the chairman's statement, the Lyon Summit issued the following documents:

The chairman's summary of earlier summits, not to be confused with the chairman's statement discussed above, had, for a number of years, been another important document in which the host leader sums up his views or impressions of the achievements of the summit. It was in the form of an oral statement, a prepared written document, or an agreed collective statement read by the host leader. It was not issued at every summit. An example is the 1981 Ottawa Summit where the host leader, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, presented a summary of political issues. Toronto 1988 issued a chairman's summary on the Middle East, South Africa, and Cambodia.

Still another type of summit document is the communiqué de la Presidence (sometimes called in English statement from the Chair) issued during the 1989 Paris Summit by President Mitterrand, in his capacity as summit chairman, on the Arab-Israeli conflict, Southern Africa, Central America, Panama, Cambodia, and Lebanon. Other examples include host leader Italian Prime Minister Amintore Fanfani' 5 statements on AIDS and narcotic drugs at the 1987 Venice Summit. The 1995 Halifax Summit saw Canadian host Prime MInister Jean Chre'tien deliver a statement on Bosnia--unusual in that it was the first evening of the Summit. This indicated that the Halifax Summit was indeed a "leaders' summit", contrasted with many previous summits at which the initial working dinner of the heads had largely confined its agenda to economic issues.

Transcripts of press conferences constitute another type of document that should be distinguished from the agreed public documents of the summits discussed earlier. Many press conferences and briefings are held throughout the summits. Each summit country, as well as the EU, goes to great lengths to present its own initiatives and positions on various summit issues to the world news media so as to reflect itself in the best possible light internationally as well as back home. Hodges notes that "the press does not know what really goes on in the summit meetings and relies heavily on briefings from the press secretaries of the various heads. Each of these briefings gives a different idea of who succeeded. " 111 On the other hand, news conferences allow media representatives to ask probing questions of major officials and other spokesmen. The press conference given at the conclusion of each summit by the leader of the host country is a particularly important event.

Although not summit documents in the strict sense, outside communications to the summit are important related documents. Especially significant are Gorbachev's 14 July 1989 letter to President Mitterrand expressing the Soviet Union's wish to be associated with the summits; and President Gorbachev's letter to President Bush, received a few days before the 1990 Houston Summit. 112 Gorbachev's letter was discussed and commented on by the leaders and reflected in Summit documents, although the texts were not released to the public. Gorbachev's 23-page message (together with a 31-page annex) to the leaders at the 1991 London Summit, delivered by Yevgeni Primakov on 12 July, caused a flurry of journalistic speculation and comment even though its text had not been officially released. The message--a synthesis of the Yavlinski reform plan and the Soviet government's plan for economic reform--was discussed intensively by the G7, although the personal dialogue, made possible by the Gorbachev visit to London, eclipsed the written communication.

Another example of outside communications to the summit is a press release issued just before the 1989 Paris Summit by four Third World leaders: President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India, Abdou Diouf of Senegal, and Carlos Andre's Pe'rez of Venezuela. The four, in the name of the fifteen major developing countries, wished to initiate regular consultations with the developed world at the summit level. The fifteen later formed their own "G- 15", alluded to earlier. One might mention in the same category the co-ordinated but separate letters addressed to the 1991 London Summit by the President of Poland, the Prime Minister of Hungary, and the President of Czechoslovakia. These letters (whose text has not been released) expressed concern about the collapse of those countries' trade with the Soviet Union, and about their access to Western markets. 113 Yet another example of this type of communication is an address to the seven heads of summit delegations, dated 26 June 1992, from the Council of the Baltic States, dealing with the continued presence of Russian forces in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

A number of observers have commented on the content of summit documents and the extent to which those documents reflect or fail to reflect actual deliberations. Merlini remarks that "distinction will have to be made in the final declarations at the end of the summits between qualifying and routine positions, between matters that have actually been discussed at the summit and matters that have been assigned to the structure ... [Conversely, w]hile it is essential that the heads of state and government exchange views and concerns, these do not necessarily all have to be listed in communiqués and declarations." G. John Ikenberry laments the "bland official communiqués that paper over dysfunctions in the global economic system, or vague joint commitments to growth and prosperity that substitute for actual accord. " 114

Garavoglia and Padoan recall the early years of the summit when "[f] inal documents were rather short and reflected rather accurately the issues dealt with by the heads of state and government, although the tendency to increase the length and number of subjects was already evident." Later, "[t]he increase in the number of subjects discussed has gradually led to a lengthening and a diversification of the final documents ... . These documents reflect a nominal agenda, which in many cases does not correspond to the matters actually discussed by the heads of state and government. " 115

An example of this lack of correspondence is the almost one third of the space taken up by the topic of the environment in the communiqué of the 1989 Summit of the Arch, contrasted with the relatively short time the leaders actually spent discussing that subject during their working dinner (according to a background briefing by a senior official). Despite genuine efforts by the leaders to correct that kind of imbalance between released documents and actual discussions, and some real successes in this respect in more recent summits, a certain imbalance remains. For example--according to a background briefing by a senior official--Russian brutality in the war in Chechnya was brought up in Halifax in 1995, with several G7 leaders expressing unhappiness if not protest to Russian President Yeltsin, but the Halifax chairman's statement of the P8 is silent on Chechnya, although remarks by the host leader prior to the release of the chairman's statement express "concern at the continuing conflict and the resulting loss of life and civilian casualties ... [and the participants'] strong belief that the situation in Chechnya should not be resolved by military means. " 116 Dissatisfaction with the French decision to resume nuclear testing in the South Pacific was also voiced by several delegations in Halifax, but--keeping with the G7 tradition of not openly criticizing summit colleagues--this sentiment did not find its way into the public documentation of the Summit.

Bergsten, a prominent critic of the G7, decries this hesitancy, stating that "[t]he 'nonaggression pact' now pervades the behavior of the G7. The members have decided not to criticize each other, especially in public, where it can sometimes be more effective, because they have lost confidence in their ability to influence events and because they fear being criticized themselves. " 117

As for desirable changes in summit documentation, Owada advocates the necessity of "a more structured approach to many vital issues through the summit process, while avoiding a bureaucratic straitjacket involving spending much time on preparing a document which basically lacks substance." Maull criticizes the "ever longer, broader and more noncommittal communiqués, which tried to hide substantive policy disagreements by focusing on elements of consensus and mutual recognition of different national approaches." He mentions the German desire to see shorter communiqués and separate chairman's summaries of political topics. Defarges concurs: the French view is that "declarations should be shorter, focusing on a few key points... . [If they] are shorter, they will be read more carefully and become more binding." Kirton, similarly, points to Canada's "strong preference for a short, straightforward, comprehensible communiqué --one that reflect[s] what the leaders actually cared about, talked about and meant, and one that [is] easily understood not just by the officials ... but by the media and public at large. " 118

Hodges laments the inflationary increase in the length of the communiqué from 1,100 words at Rambouillet to 7,000 words at Munich [the Munich communiqué was actually 3,560 words in length. Houston produced a declaration of some 6,000 words.--P.H.] and cites John Major's reform proposals that include the desirability of "concise final communiqués that reflect the issues actually discussed and the priorities established". Quoting a British official, he adds that "instead of producing prenegotiated texts and thematic papers, the sherpa meetings should concentrate on discussing lead papers introduced by a chairman." The British preference, pre-Naples, was for a shorter final declaration that "should integrate political and economic issues. " 119

Garavoglia and Padoan, writing in early 1994, also suggest that

[o]nly one final document should be issued at the end of the summit and it should integrate economic and political aspects as much as possible. Furthermore, it should reflect the matters actually discussed by the leaders. This means that it would be much shorter than current communiqués, facilitating immediate public understanding of the matters discussed ... . If the non-decisional nature of the summit is to be underlined, this could be done by a less demanding "summary by the chairman" illustrating the main points on which the heads of state and government reached agreement. 120

It is interesting to note how quickly real events can overtake even the best-considered proposals from outside the G7. One of the major new developments at the Naples Summit that took place only a few months after the above-cited proposal was written was Russia's formal participation in the political discussions. This resulted in an immediate change in the pattern of summit documentation, described in detail above: the communiqué of the 1994, 1995 and 1996 summits was issued at the end of the G7 part of the summit, on the second day, so that it was no longer the "final" document. The "chairman's statement" came to express the conclusions of the P8.

The new configuration of the "Summit of the Eight" at Denver in 1997 has changed the nature and scope of the communiqué. Now a document of the Eight, the Communiqué was released at the conclusion of the summit, on 22 June. The following additional documents were released in Denver:

What documents can be expected as a result of the 1998 Birmingham G8 Summit? It is known at the time of this writing that, in addition to the G8 summit communiqué, there will be a report from the finance ministers to the leaders concerning the response to the 1997 Asian economic crisis. This report is part of the "Birmingham process" announced by the British Chancellor of the Exchequer following the G7 finance ministers' meeting on 21 February 1998. 121 It is not unlikely that the G8 foreign ministers, meeting a week before the Birmingham Summit, will submit their own report to the leaders. There may well be other official Birmingham documents.

Archives. Presidential, prime ministerial, as well as foreign, finance and other ministry archives are a potentially rich mine of G7/G8 information. These archives will yield the best and most reliable record of G7/G8 meetings, especially if note-takers at the meetings were accurate and comprehensive in their work. The Ford Presidential Library in Ann Arbor, Michigan includes archival material related to the 1975 Rambouillet Summit and the 1976 San Juan Summit. 122 The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration lists extensive holdings from the Carter administration concerning the 1977, 1978, 1979 and 1980 summits. 123 As and when these and other archives in summit countries are opened, their holdings will, no doubt, be explored by researchers seeking access to first-hand accounts by participants of summits and G7/G8 ministerial meetings.

Writings about the G7/G8. There is a large and growing corpus of writings about various aspects of the G7/G8: scholarly analyses; compilations of texts of documents, often accompanied by additional material of reference value; government publications, including parliamentary reviews in summit countries; memoirs and other writings by prominent former summit participants; reference works of various types; media accounts including reportage and analysis in newspapers, journals, radio and television; and, increasingly, Internet resources, with some Web sites devoted to the G7/G8 either on an ad hoc or permanent basis. The Appendix presents some examples of writings in each category. For a detailed list, see this author's bibliography that accompanies this study.

Notes:

Note 95: Philippe Moreau Defarges, "The French Viewpoint on the Future of the G-7," 184. Back.

Note 96: Whyman, "We Can't Go On Meeting Like This," 153-54. Back.

Note 97: Other sources of the texts of the final communiques include the U.S. Department of State Bulletin (now defunct but continued by the US Department of State Dispatch and by Foreign Policy Bulletin: The Documentary Record of United States Foreign Policy), La politique etrangere de la France (issued by the Documentation francaise for the Ministere des relations exteneures of France), and other official publications of the summit countries. For a collected set of summit documents see The Seven-Power Summit: Documents from the Summits of Industrialized Countries, 1975-1989 (Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus International Publications, 1989) and its Supplement: Documents from the 1990 Summit (Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus International Publications, 1991), both comp. and ed. Peter I. Hajnal. For a more recent collection of summit communiques and declarations see The Twenty G-7 Summits (Rome: Adnkronos Libri in Collaboration with Istituto Affari Internazionali, 1994). The University of Toronto G7 Information Centre, an Internet World Wide Web site devoted to the G7 and including, along with summit-related writings and other studies, a comprehensive set of G7 documents, may be accessed at the following address: www . g7 . utoronto . ca/. Back.

Note 98: De Guttry, "The Institutional Configuration of the G-7 in the New International Scenario," 70-71. Back.

Note 99: Hodges, "More Efficiency, Less Dignity: British Perspectives on the Future Role and Working of the G-7," 150. Back.

Note 100: Defarges, "The French Viewpoint on the Future of the G-7," 179; Whyman, "We Can't Go On Meeting Like This: Revitalizing the G-7 Process," 142. Back.

Note 101: Owada, "A Japanese Perspective on the Role and Future of the G-7," 111. Back.

Note 102: The OECD ministerial communique for 1997 was issued as Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Press Release (Paris: OECD, 27 May 1997; SG/COM/NEWS(97)45) The texts of OECD ministerial communiques can also be found in each issue of the Annual Report of the OECD (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). Back.

Note 103: "Draft Halifax Summit Communique, Dated May 27, 1995, Released June 6 by Canadian Member of Parliament Nelson Rus," Preview of the G-7 Summit, Halifax, Canada, June 15-17, Daily Report for Executives, No. 114, Special Issue: (Washington, D.C.: Bureau of National Affairs, June 14, 1995): S-12--S-16. See also URL: www.library.utoronto.ca/www/g7/9scom.htm. Back.

Note 104: See, for example, "Summit Part of Larger Process", The Financial Post, 22 June 1988. URL: www.library.utoronto.ca/www/g7/fp/ED880622.htm. Back.

Note 105: John J. Kirton, "Introduction," in The Seven-Power Summit: Documents from the Summits of Industrialized Countries, 1975-1989, xxxii. Comp. and ed. Peter I. Hajnal (Miliwood, N.Y.: Kraus International Publications, 1989). Back.

Note 106: Guido Garavoglia, and Pier Carlo Padoan, "The G-7 Agenda: Old and New Issues," 51. Back.

Note 107: Kirton, "Introduction," in The Seven-Power Summit: Documents from the Summits of Industrialized Countries, 1975-1989, xxxiii. Back.

Note 108: Robert D. Putnam, "Western Summitry in the 19908: American Perspectives," 91. Back.

Note 109: [Halifax Summit], Chairman's Statement, June 17, 1995. In United States, Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, US Department of State Dispatch 6, Supplement 4 (July 1995), 10-13. See also URL: www.library.utoronto.ca/www/g7/95chair.htm. Back.

Note 110: Lyon Summit, Chairman's Statement, paragraph 3. University of Toronto G7 Information Centre at URL: www.library.utoronto.ca/www/g7/96po1i3.htm. Back.

Note 111: Hodges, "More Efficiency, Less Dignity: British Perspectives on the Future Role and Working of the G-7," 155. Back.

Note 112: The text of President Gorbachev's letter to President Mitterrand is reproduced in The Seven-Power Summit: Documents from the Summits of Industrialized Countries, 1975-1989, 429-36. Bayne and Putnam note that the letter "was identified by the British Foreign Secretary, Geoffrey Howe, as a cry for help": Bayne and Putnam, "Introduction: The G-7 Summit Comes of Age", 7. Maull reports that, in addition to Gorbachev's letter, there was another one from German Chancellor Kohl, on economic and political cooperation with Moscow: Hanns W. Maull, "Germany at the Summit," 128. Back.

Note 113: Disclosed at a British press briefing, given by Gus O'Donnell (the Prime Minister's Chief Press Secretary), Francis Cornish (Press Secretary to the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs) and Dick Saunders (Press Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer), 15 July 1991. Back.

Note 114: Merlini, "The G-7 and the Need for Reform," 19; G. John Ikenberry, "Salvaging the G-7," 132. Back.

Note 115: Garavoglia and Padoan, "The G-7 Agenda: Old and New Issues," 53-55. Back.

Note 116: Halifax Summit, "Remarks by Prime Minister Jean Chretien," June 17, 1995, para . 4. URL: www.library.utoronto.ca./www/g7/9schr.htm. Back.

Note 117: C. Fred Bergsten, "Grade 'F' for the G7," The International Economy: The Magazine of the G7 Council 10, No. 6 (November/December 1996) : 19. Back.

Note 118: Owada, "A Japanese Perspective on the Role and Future of the G-7," 110; Hanns W. Maull, "Germany at the Summit," 121, 136; Defarges, "The French Viewpoint on the Future of the G7," 184; John J. Kirton, "Exercising Concerted Leadership: Canada's Approach to Summit Reform," in The Future of the G-7 Summits, 163. Back.

Note 119: Hodges, "More Efficiency, Less Dignity: British Perspectives on the Future Role and Working of the G-7," 144, 146, 151, 154. Back.

Note 120: Garavoglia and Padoan, "The G-7 Agenda: Old and New Issues," 63. Back.

Note 121: "The UK G7/8 Presidency: Real Issues, Real Progress," Great Britain, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, [Birmingham G8 Summit Web Site] . [Computer file] URL: birmingham.g8summit.gov.uk/briefo398/issues.shtml. Back.

Note 122: See URL: www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/ford/, especially under "Foreign Economic Policy". Back.

Note 123: U.S., National Archives and Records Administration, NARA Archival Information Locator (NAIL) [computer file] . URL: www.nara.gov/nara/nai1.html. Back.