As G8 leaders prepare to gather in Northern Ireland on June 17 and 18, we are reminded of days when American, western European and Japanese officials could credibly claim to set an international agenda. Then came the financial meltdown of 2008, a catastrophe that made unavoidably obvious that most "problems without borders" can no longer be addressed without support from China, India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and other emerging powers.Members of the G20 gathered in Washington in November 2008 and London in April 2009 to claim their seats at the world's most important bargaining table.
Yet, despite positive early results - the product of a crisis that appeared to threaten all the major powers at the same time - the G20 has not produced much value. Without the urgency that only a crisis can create, it soon becomes obvious that it's difficult to build agreements that impose costs and risks on 20 negotiators than those that demand compromise from seven or eight.This is especially true for a group that does not share a common set of assumptions about the proper role of the state in an economy, or about the value of the rule of law, transparency and freedoms of speech, press and assembly.
