ABSTRACT: The summit meetings of industrialized, market-economy democracies (the Group of Seven or G-7), begun in 1975, have become not merely important annual world events, but have evolved into a major world institution. Although not a structured organization like the United Nations (UN) or the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the summit is a forum in which the leaders of the world's seven major industrialized countries and the European Union (formerly European Community), assisted by their foreign and finance ministers and personal representatives, set the agenda, then debate and make decisions on economic, political, environmental, security, debt-related and other topics, and issue a variety of documents reflecting their deliberations and decisions. This article discusses the context, nature and significance of summit documents of various types. The article also refers to various summit-related groups and bodies, and to the relationship of the G-7 to the OECD, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), GATT's successor, the new World Trade Organization (WTO), and other international organizations and events.
RÉSUMÉ: Les rencontres au Sommet des démocraties industrialisées favorisant l'économie de marché (le Groupe des 7 ou le G-7), qui ont débuté en 1975, sont devenues non simplement d'importants événements mondiaux mais ont pris les dimensions d'une institution mondiale majeure. Bien que ces conférences ne soient pas une organisation structurée telle que les Nations Unies (ONU) ou l'Organisation de Coopération et de Développement économiques (OCDE), le Sommet est un forum où les leaders des 7 pays industrialisés les plus importants du monde et l'Union européenne (anciennement les Communautés européennes), assistés de leurs ministres des finances et des affaires extérieures ainsi que de leurs représentants personnels, dressent l'ordre du jour, ensuite délibèrent et prennent des décisions sur des sujets touchant à l'économie, la politique, l'environnement, la sécurité, la dette ainsi qu'à d'autres sujets et publient un grand nombre de documents reflétant leurs délibérations et décisions. Cet article se penche sur le contexte, la nature et la signification de documents de différents genres du Sommet. Cet article fait également référence à de nombreux groupes ou organisations ayant un rapport avec le Sommet ainsi qu'à la relation entre le G-7 et l'OCDE, le Fonds monétaire international (FMI), le GATT (Accord général sur les tarifs douaniers et le commerce) le successeur du GATT, la nouvelle Organisation mondiale du commerce et d'autres organisations et événements internationaux.
Canada has, for a long time, been a keen participant in international organizations. According to the latest edition of the authoritative Yearbook of International Organizations, in 1994 Canada was a member of 2,106 international governmental and nongovernmental organizations, placing fifteenth among countries in terms of participation in those organizations, ahead of Japan but behind France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States.3 A recent report of the Canadian Parliament's Special Joint Committee Reviewing Canadian Foreign Policy, entitled Canada's Foreign Policy: Principles and Priorities for the Future, reaffirms this country's commitment to multilateralism.4 A crucial aspect of Canada's multilateral diplomacy is the part it plays in the G-7 summit. As the next summit, to be hosted by Canada in Halifax on 15-17 June 1995, approaches, this is a good time to examine the G-7 and its documentation.
International governmental organizations are often classified according to the extent of their membership: global or universal bodies such as the UN, transcontinental bodies such as the OECD, and regional groupings such as the Organization of American States. The Yearbook of International Organizations defines international governmental organizations (IGOs) as bodies which are based on a formal instrument of agreement between the governments of nation states; ... [include] three or more nation states as parties to the agreement; ... [and have] a permanent secretariat performing ongoing tasks.5
There are also less structured forms of international arrangements; one of the most important of these is the G-7 summit. Although these major annual meetings are covered in great detail by the news media and, less extensively, by scholarly and other specialized writing, the resulting documentation is not widely understood. This article explores the context and the nature of that documentation.
Summit delegations of each participating country include, with some variations, the head of state or government, the foreign minister, the finance minister, and the leader's personal representative or "sherpa", a term that comes from the name (or rather nationality) of the mountain guides in the Himalayas. The European Union is represented by the president of the Commission, the vice-presidents for external relations and for economic and financial affairs, and the president's personal representative.
Four events in the early 1970s had a profound effect on the world economic system:
It was in this context that the finance ministers of the United States, Germany, Britain and France met in April 1973 in the White House library, becoming known as the "Library Group". Later joined by Japan, the group had met periodically for a number of years and had come to be known as the Group of Five finance ministers. The governors of the central banks of the Five sometimes joined the finance ministers at these meetings.
Some two years after the initial get-together of the "Library Group",
thirty-five heads of state and government gathered in Helsinki to sign the Final Act of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe. The leaders of the four Western powers met for lunch at the British Embassy in Helsinki on 31 July, together with their foreign ministers. Those present were Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger; Valéry Giscard-d'Estaing and Jean Sauvagnargues; Helmut Schmidt and Hans-Dietrich Genscher; Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. They discussed President Giscard's proposal that they should meet later that year, together with Japan, to address economic and monetary problems. This was the genesis of the summits.8
1. The first summit was held in Rambouillet, France, from 15 to 17 November 1975. The participants were the Five (France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan) plus Italy. The main topics were inflation, exchange rates, economic growth, oil prices and supplies, and unemployment. These concerns, especially monetary reform, were reflected in the final communiqué known as the Declaration of Rambouillet. The Rambouillet meeting was originally intended as a one-time get-together of the leaders, but President Ford of the United States decided to call another such conference the following year.
2. The next summit meeting, with Canada joining for the first time, met in San Juan, Puerto Rico, from 27 to 28 June 1976. In addition to the concerns of Rambouillet, the San Juan agenda included balance-of-payments problems and the Tokyo Round of GATT trade negotiations. With San Juan, the summit became a regular annual event.
3. The first London summit ("London I") was held from 7 to 8 May 1977. Here, the European Community (now European Union) first became a participant (then and still a less-than equal one). Energy, especially the use of nuclear energy, and North-South relations were added to the summit agenda in London.
4. The key issues of the first Bonn summit ("Bonn I"), held from 16 to 17 July 1978, were economic growth, energy, and trade. Bonn I resulted, in addition to the usual final communiqué, in a precedent-setting political declaration, on the hijacking of aircraft.
5. Energy was the paramount concern at the first Tokyo summit ("Tokyo I"), held from 28 to 29 June 1979. The final communiqué included specific undertakings by summit countries to curb their oil imports. Tokyo I also deplored air hijackings and issued a special statement on Indochinese refugees.
6. Energy continued to be at the top of the agenda in Venice ("Venice I"), held from 22 to 23 June 1980. Other concerns, expressed in special statements, dealt with Afghanistan and with the occupation of the United States Embassy in Teheran.
7. The Ottawa summit of 20-21 July 1981 (the first G-7 summit held in Canada) discussed the usual economic issues, along with aid to developing countries and East-West economic relations. The host leader, Prime Minister Trudeau, presented a summary of political issues; and there was a separate statement on terrorism.
8. The Versailles summit of 4-6 June 1982 reviewed the whole gamut of economic concerns, concentrating on East-West trade, and setting the stage for more effective multilateral surveillance of monetary policies and exchange rates, to be co-ordinated by the IMF. The main political statement addressed the situation in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion.
9. At Williamsburg, Virginia (28-30 May 1983) the summit participants discussed the usual economic issues, including the growing debt crisis. On the political front there was a call for arms control and greater co-operation in that field between the Soviet Union and the G-7.
10. Debt was a central concern at "London II," held from 7 to 9 June 1984. On the political side, there were declarations on democratic values, on terrorism, and on East-West security relations, as well as a statement on the Iran-Iraq conflict.
11. "Bonn II" (2-4 May 1985) produced, in addition to the economic communiqué, a political declaration commemorating the fortieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War. Bonn II was also notable for introducing the topic of the environment to the summit agenda.
12. "Tokyo II," held from 4 to 6 May 1986 and considered to be one of the more successful summits, called for an overhauling of agricultural policies of summit countries, established the Group of Seven finance ministers, and agreed to launch (through GATT) the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations. One of the political declarations commented on the Chernobyl nuclear accident.
13. "Venice II" took place from 8 to 10 June 1987. It brought forward, in addition to the economic communiqué, statements on East-West relations, terrorism, the Iran-Iraq war, AIDS, and narcotic drugs.
14. The Toronto summit of 19 to 21 June 1988 (the second G-7 summit held in Canada) produced the so-called "Toronto terms" for relieving the debt burden of the poorest developing countries.9 Along with the final communiqué and the political declaration, this summit issued a chairman's summary on the Middle East, South Africa, and Cambodia.
15. Debt relief also played an important part in the Paris summit (called the "Summit of the Arch") of 14 to 16 July 1989, with the adoption of the Brady Plan. Other important topics included the environment, the strengthening of GATT, and economic efficiency. 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 democratization in Eastern and Central Europe), and on terrorism. One major initiative in Paris was a letter from President Gorbachev to President Mitterrand, to be discussed later in this article. Another interesting event, on the eve of the summit, was a communication from four Third World leaders on behalf of the developing world.
16. The summit at Houston, Texas, held from 9 to 11 July 1990, addressed not only the usual range of economic issues but a number of specific problems of the environment, democratization in Europe and elsewhere in the world, Soviet economic reforms, liberalization of export controls, drug abuse, and the non-proliferation of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The most contentious issues at Houston were agricultural trade subsidies, aid to the Soviet Union, and global warming or climate change. Houston saw the continuation of the dialogue with the Soviet Union: Gorbachev's letter to George Bush was discussed and commented on by the leaders and reflected in summit documents.
17. The London summit of 15 to 17 July 1991 ("London III") had as its theme "building world partnership and strengthening the international order". British Prime Minister John Major, the host leader, highlighted eight particular achievements: proposals to strengthen the UN in the areas of peace-keeping, peace-making, and response to emergencies; proposals to ensure better regulation and control of conventional arms sales by means of a UN arms register; commitment to sustained economic recovery and price stability; personal commitment of the leaders to work for the conclusion of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations by the end of 1991;10 support for political and economic reform in Central and East European countries; financial and technical assistance to developing countries, including debt relief to the poorest, beyond the Toronto terms; support for the June 1992 Rio de Janeiro UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED); and stepping up the fight against drug abuse and drug trafficking.11
The event that dominated London III was the historic visit to London of then Soviet President Gorbachev in connection with the summit. He met with G-7 leaders individually and collectively, and discussed in detail the plans for Soviet economic and political reform.12 Although attitudes among the G-7 varied about how and how much to help the Soviet Union, the leaders "all agreed to work together to promote the integration of the Soviet Union into the world economy."13 It was at their meeting in London on 17 July 1991 that the two presidents, Gorbachev and Bush, solved the last impediment to the strategic arms reduction treaty (START). The treaty was subsequently signed by Gorbachev and Bush on the 31st of July 1991, during their bilateral summit meeting held in Moscow. Of course, the unsuccessful coup that took place a month after the summit led to the demise of the Soviet Union and of Gorbachev as leader of his country.
London III was very important as well for the development of the
summit as an institution.
In addition, the leaders at Munich concentrated on 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. The Seven issued a separate declaration on the crisis in the
former Yugoslavia, and also put forward views on problems and developments
in other parts of the world.
Just as in 1991 Gorbachev's visit dominated the London proceedings,
Yeltsin's visit to Munich in 1992 took the spotlight. Although formally
outside the summit framework, he held bilateral meetings as well as joint
sessions with the G-7 leaders, and returned home with not only a greater
show of good will but a more concrete aid package (some US$4.5 billion) than
his predecessor. The idea was even floated by U.S. President Bush (but not
taken up by other summit leaders) of turning the G-7 into a G-8 by
the formal participation of Russia. However, the dialogue with Russia
around the summit seems has been placed on a regular basis.
19. "Tokyo III" met from 7 to 9 July 1993. Its main economic theme was
"a strengthened commitment to jobs and growth". The final communiqué
addressed problems of the world economy, especially the level of unemployment
and insufficient economic growth. The communiqué incorporated
various economic commitments by the
Seven, although these were "soft" rather than "hard", specific commitments.
The document also confirmed a $3 billion fund to aid Russian privatization.
Perhaps the major achievement was the agreement (which was actually reached
on the eve of Tokyo III by the U.S., Canada, Japan and the European
Community
trade ministers' quadrilateral meeting) on market access to manufactured
goods--an agreement that proved to be a catalyst for the completion of the
stalled Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations. Concerning those
negotiations, the communiqué again states: "our highest priority is a
successful conclusion to the Uruguay Round." (The deadline for the
completion of the Uruguay Round was finally met by the end of the year.)
Tokyo III also addressed the question of the summit as an institution, and
stated the leaders' wish that "summits should be less ceremonial, with fewer
people, documents and declarations, and with more time devoted to informal
discussion".15
20. Last year's G-7 summit met in Naples, Italy from 8 to 10 July. The
agenda included: jobs and economic growth; trade, including a call for
ratification of the Uruguay Round agreements and the establishment of the
World Trade Organization (WTO) by January 1, 1995 (this has indeed taken
place by the new deadline);
the environment; progress in developing countries; nuclear safety in Central
and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union; the economic and security
situation in Ukraine, and aid to that country; political and economic reform
in Russia; countries in transition, particularly in Central and Eastern
Europe; and transnational crime and money laundering. All of those issues
were reflected in the Naples communiqué, this time actually called
"Summit Communiqué". Significantly for Canada, the Communiqué
included--at Canada's initiative--a call for a conference on the Ukraine;
the conference took place last fall in Winnipeg. It should interest
information professionals that the development of a worldwide information
infrastructure, too, made it to the Naples
communiqué.16
Instead of the usual political declaration, Naples produced a
"Chairman's Statement [Political]" that 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. It was especially remarkable that, for the first
time, Russia was a full participant in the political discussions of which the
"Chairman's Statement" was the documentary product. Russia itself has
referred to the new "political G-8". It should, however, be emphasized that
Russia has not joined the G-7 "club".
The documentary and other results of the Naples summit indicate that
the forthcoming Halifax summit will have on its agenda the role of
international financial and economic institutions: "What framework of
institutions will be required to meet these challenges [sustainable
development with good prosperity and well-being of the peoples...of the world]
in the 21st century? How can we adapt existing institutions and build new
institutions to ensure the future prosperity and security of our
people?"17
The relationship between trade and environment, and the work of the new
WTO will be discussed as well.18
Further, the leaders in Naples forecast
"an even more flexible and less formal summit" in
Halifax.19
As for Russia,
its political and security participation in the summit may be further
formalized at the Halifax summit.
The principal document of each summit is the final communiqué,
often called "declaration" or "economic declaration". The subjects of the
final communiqué range from exchange rates, interest rates,
inflation, unemployment and economic growth to North-South and East-West
relations, the environment, Third World debt and any other issue on the
agenda. In earlier years, the text of the communiqué was often
carried in full in The New York Times and other newspapers of record, but as
the communiqués had grown progressively longer, this practice was
discontinued.20
The preparation of the final communiqué is a long, involved
process spread out during the whole year leading up to each summit. The
sherpas play a crucial role in the production of this document. They meet
several times during the year, 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, 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
drafting of the communiqué and, at their final pre-summit meeting,
completing the "thematic paper" (which closely resembles the final draft).
The actual final draft usually involves feverish last-minute preparations,
well into the last night of the summit (or, in Naples last year, the night
before the release of the communiqué). In Naples, the sherpas
stayed up until 5:30 AM to complete the final draft. The
communiqué 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 signalled their intention to have more
informal meetings and to produce shorter documents once again.
It is instructive to compare the final summit communiqué with
the communiqué issued by the OECD ministerial meeting usually held
about a month before the summit. For example, the communiqué of the
OECD ministerial meeting held from 7 to 8 June 1994 raised many of the
economic and political concerns that figure prominently in the Naples
communiqué of July 9.21
"Ranking second in the hierarchy of summit scripture"22 is
the political
or other non-economic declaration. The first such declaration was issued by
the 1978 Bonn summit, on the hijacking of aircraft. Declarations have since
ranged in subject from refugees and terrorism through East-West security
concerns to narcotics 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."23
The 1991
summit produced a "Political Declaration" subtitled "Strengthening the
International Order" as well as 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 Nagorno-Karabakh, the Baltic States, the
Middle East, Iraq, Korea, China, the Mediterranean, Africa, 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 given
the title "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. Last year, at
Naples, the usual political declaration was, as mentioned above, replaced by
a "Chairman's Statement [Political]", drafted with Russian participation and
released at the end of the summit, a day after rather than a day before the
summit communiqué as had been the practice in the past.
The chairman's summary is another important document in which the
host leader sums up his views or impressions of the achievements of the
summit. It may be an oral statement, a prepared written document, or an
agreed collective statement read by the host leader. It is not issued at
every summit.
Transcripts of press conferences constitute another type of document,
less formally associated with the summits. Many press conferences and
briefings are held throughout the summits. Each summit country, as well as
the European Union, 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 at home. In
addition, press conferences allow media representatives to ask probing
questions of major officials and other spokesmen. A particularly important
event is the press conference given at the conclusion of each summit by the
leader of the host country.
Still another type of summit document is the communiqué de la
Présidence (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
Fanfani's statements on AIDS and on narcotic drugs at the 1987 Venice
summit.
Although not summit documents in the strict sense, outside
communications to the summit are important related documents: especially
significant are President 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.24
The Gorbachev-Bush exchange of
communications was discussed and commented on by the summiteers, although
the texts were not released to the public. President 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
released. The message--reportedly a synthesis of the Yavlinski plan and
the Soviet government's plan for economic reform--was, of course, discussed
intensively by the G-7, although the personal dialogue, made possible by
the Gorbachev visit to London, eclipsed the written communication.
Another example of communications to the summit is a press release
issued just before the 1989 Paris summit by four Third World leaders:
President Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi of India, and
Messrs. Abdou Diouf of Senegal and Carlos Andrés Pérez of
Venezuela. The four, in the name of developing countries, wished to
initiate regular consultations with the developed world at the summit
level. 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) express concern about the
collapse of those countries' trade with the Soviet Union, and about their
access to Western markets.25
Yet another example of this type of communication
is an address to the seven Heads of summit delegation, dated June 26 1992,
from the Council of the Baltic States, dealing with the continued presence
of Russian forces in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
Summit meetings do not occur in isolation from other international
events and organizations. This article has already discussed the preparatory
role of the sherpas during the year leading up to each summit, and the
relationship of the OECD Ministerial meeting to the summit. Other groups
also meet several times during the year to discuss and decide on
summit-related issues. One such "son of the summit" is the series of
meetings held by the Group of Seven Finance Ministers (set up by the 1986
Tokyo summit), often attended also by the chairmen of the central banks of
the Summit Seven and the Managing Director of the IMF.26
An even more
exclusive club was the "Group of Five" finance ministers (the Seven minus
Italy and Canada), also referred to earlier in this article. Another
"son of the summit" is the "trade ministers quadrilateral" created by
the 1981 Ottawa summit, which brings together ministers from the
United States, Canada, Japan and the European Union. A more recent
phenomenon is a meeting of G-7 foreign ministers in New York in September,
around the time of the opening of the UN General Assembly; this type of
meeting first took place in 1991. Other such fora are emerging; for example,
meetings of G-7 environment ministers.
Summit documents often refer to the activities of such groups. In
addition, one finds in the corpus of summit documents numerous references to
the IMF, the OECD, the GATT, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), and other
international institutions, including, of course, the European Union.
Conversely, traditional international organizations sometimes produce official
publications instigated by the summit. Two important examples, produced at
the direct request of the 1990 Houston summit, are studies on the Soviet
economy; one prepared jointly by the IMF, the World Bank, the OECD and the
new European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
(EBRD),27
the other by the European Community.28
Summit documents reflect the deliberations, goals and programmes of
the major industrial democracies. They also show that the summit--a novel
and most significant institution on the international scene--has become a
firm part of international life in a variety of economic, political,
environmental and other fields.
[1] May be cited as/On peut citer comme suit:
Peter I. Hajnal, "The G-7 Summit and Its Documents," Government
Information in Canada, Vol. 1, No. 3.3. (1995)
Copyright 1995 Peter I. Hajnal
Short portions of this article may be quoted as long as appropriate credit
is given to the source. For any other use of this text, permission from
the author should be obtained.
A fuller version of this article will appear as a chapter in the author's
forthcoming International Information: Documents, Publications and
Information Systems of International Governmental Organizations,
to be published by Libraries Unlimited.
[3] Yearbook of International Organizations,
31st ed., 1994/95, Vol. 2 (edited by Union of International Associations,
Munich/New York: K.G. Saur, 1984), pp. 1683, 1694.
[4] Canada, Parliament, Thirty-fifth Parliament, First
Session, Special Joint Committee Reviewing Canadian Foreign Policy,
Canada's Foreign Policy: Principles and Priorities for the Future
(Minutes of Proceedings and Evidence, Issue No. 52; Ottawa, s.n., 1994),
pp. 81-83.
[5] Yearbook of International Organizations,
31st ed., 1994/95, Vol. 1, p. 1616-17.
[6] Robert D. Putnam and Nicholas Bayne, Hanging
Together: Cooperation and Conflict in the Seven-Power Summits,
rev. ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987), p. 25.
[7] Ibid., p. 27.
[8] Ibid., p. 25.
[9] The "Toronto terms" called for a one-third reduction
of the official debt (debt owed to governments) of the poorest developing
countries.
[10] Despite this "personal commitment", the Uruguay
Round was concluded successfully and ratified only at the end of 1994.
[11] Based on "Transcript of Press Conference Given by
the Prime Minister, Mr. John Major, at the Economic Summit in London on
Wednesday, 17 July 1991" (unpublished; released at the London Economic
Summit, 17 July 1991).
[12] It was during their meeting in London on 17 July
1991 that Presidents Gorbachev and Bush solved the last impediment to the
strategic arms reduction treaty (START). The treaty was subsequently
signed by the two heads of state on 31 July 1991, during their meeting
held in Moscow.
[13] "Transcript of Joint Press Conference Given by the
Prime Minister, Mr. John Major, and the Soviet President, Mr. Mikhael
[sic] Gorbachev, in London on 17 July 1991" (unpublished; released at the
London Economic Summit, 17 July 1991), p. 3.
[14] A study team of the Group of Thirty, a
Washington-based think tank, made several recommendations in a report
released on the eve of the 1991 London summit. The main proposals were:
setting a new core agenda for future summits; sharing responsibility
systematically and comprehensively; and improving follow-up arrangements
for summit initiatives. If implemented, these measures would represent
significant further evolution of the summit as an institution. Group of
Thirty, The Summit Process and Collective Security: Future
Responsibility Sharing (Washington, D.C.: Group of Thirty,
forthcoming, 1991).
[15] Tokyo Economic Declaration, July 9,
1993, para. 16.
[16] Naples Summit Communiqué (July 9,
1994), p. 2.
[17] Ibid., p. 1.
[18] Ibid., p. 3.
[19] Ibid., p. 9.
[20] Other sources of the texts of the final
communiqués 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 étrangère de la France (issued by the
Documentation française for the Ministère des relations
extérieures 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 compiled and edited by Peter I. Hajnal. For a
more recent collection of summit communiqués and declarations
see The Twenty G-7 Summits (Rome: Adnkronos Libri
in Collaboration with Istituto Affari Internazionali, 1994).
[21] For the text of the OECD Ministerial
communiqué, see Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development, OECD Press Releases (Paris: OECD, 8 June
1994; SG/PRESS(94)41). The texts of OECD Ministerial communiqués
may also be found in each issue of the Annual Report of the
OECD (Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development).
[22] John J. Kirton, "Introduction," The
Seven-Power Summit: Documents from the Summits of Industrialized
Countries, 1975-1989, p. xxxii.
[23] Ibid., p. xxxiii.
[24] 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,
pp. 429-36.
[25] 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.
[26] Group of Seven Finance Ministers'
communiqués are published in the IMF Survey
(Washington, D.C.: International Monetary Fund).
[27] The Economy of the USSR: Summary and
Recommendations (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1990).
[28] "Stabilization, Liberalization and Devolution:
Assessment of the Economic Situation and Reform Process in the Soviet
Union," European Economy, No. 45 (December 1990).
Summit Documents
Connections with other international organizations and fora
NOTES AND REFERENCES
Peter I. Hajnal
University of Toronto Library and
Faculty of Information Studies
University of Toronto
Toronto, Ontario
M5S 1A5
Canada
hajnalp@vax.library.utoronto.ca