G-8

G-8 SUMMITS ARE THE annual meetings of the government leaders of the major industrial countries. The G-8, which was known as G-7 before Russia joined it as the eighth country, functions as a forum where heads of state can discuss economic, political, and financial issues of mutual interest and attempt common strategies.

Yet, with the rise of the antiglobalization movement in the 1990s, these summits have been widely contested. They have become the symbol of economic injustice and of those free-market policies that antiglobalization militants fault for reinforcing world poverty. Opposition groups to the G-8 have voiced their hostility to what they consider undemocratic meetings controlled by big corporations, demonstrating in large parades that have sometimes caused urban riots and violent clashes with police forces.

G-8 meetings have come to represent the central discrepancy of global economy: the huge decentralization of production processes, often moving to developing countries where manpower is cheaper, child labor can be exploited, and workers’ rights are nonexistent is implemented through a simultaneous centralization of command and control processes in rich economies.

The G-7 was originally formed in 1976 when the leaders of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United States, and Canada met in Puerto Rico to discuss the efficacy of their economic and financial policies. The following year, the European Community (now European Union) was invited to take part in the meetings. Russia was first asked to participate in political discussions in 1994 and became a full member four years later, thus turning the G-7 into the G-8. The annual meetings of the G-8 take place in the home country of its chair, which is assigned on a rotating basis among the member states. The summits were originally intended to support economic growth and retain stability in the international financial markets. Yet, with the rise of globalization, the meetings have stressed the increased interdependence of markets and economies, with their goals shifting to the improvement of the cooperation among the G-8 member countries. Enhanced cooperation was soon perceived as the only way to ensure the efficient functioning of the different national economies.

In the late 1980s, such dramatic events as the Iran-Iraq war, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the Tiananmen Square massacre in China, the Gulf War, and the fall of communist regimes in eastern and central Eu [Page 410]rope have made political issues just as central to G-8 summits as economic ones. The scope of G-8 meetings has expanded even more in recent years to include international political and social issues such as debt-relief to developing countries, the threats of terrorism worldwide, and organized crime, environmental, and health-care problems.

The 2005 G-8 Summit, with the eight leaders and accompanying dignitaries behind British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Poverty in developing countries has become an increasingly central issue in G-8 summits since 1996. The G-8 meeting in Lyon, France, that year witnessed the creation of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), which stated that industrial countries should support developing countries in their industrial development and in the transition to a global market economy.

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