By Jens Martens A winner of the G8 summit has already been decided before the Helicopters of the leaders arrived in Heiligendamm: It is the global justice movement in Germany. She reached ahead of the summit an unprecedented mobilization of public and media presence. The hopes of attacking activists of the G8 summit would lead to the "makeover" for the critics of globalization have been fulfilled.
The flip side of the coin provide through their massive protests, the civil society groups, the leaders of the G8 until the media attention that their press offices and media consultant alone would never reach. By focusing on the G8 - albeit critical - refer them to contribute more institutional strengthening of this exclusive club instead of its legitimacy from. By catalog as claims like "Save the Climate", "underscores the debt" or "resolves the problems of Africa" to the G8 address, they stir up Omnipotenzillusionen and contribute inadvertently to the fact that the seven men and one woman are styled as saviors - a role that they can neither play nor will.
is moved so the center of the G8 anti-globalization debate, it is not surprising that also calls for the "democratization" of the global governance system is mainly to work through the G8 as an institution. But in this context is often required opening of the G8 for a handful of regional powers (especially the "O5") and photo opportunities with some African leaders to make this "members only" club neither democratic nor representative. Meeting of G8 Sherpas and the Chancellor with hand-selected representatives of civil society may enhance the political standing of the participating NGOs and convey to the public a picture of the readiness for dialogue and openness - distract them from the structural deficits of representativeness and transparency of the G8 suggested more than that they overcome them.
superfluous but to replace assets, the G8 with a new body in which the countries of the South are equally represented and have a vested civil society organizations say. For such a body must not be re-invented: The ECOSOC, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, it has existed for over 60 years. That this Council of its functions has not been filled, power-political reasons. For among its 54 members are the G8 countries in the minority (the reform of ECOSOC: A Neverending Story >>> W & D background in November 2007 ?). No wonder that in the past, no serious Institutions have undertaken to equip the Council with life and especially with political decision making. Only recently, governments in the UN General Assembly have decided to strengthen the ECOSOC. Civil society organizations could remind the governments at the next meeting of the Council of this decision. It takes place four weeks after the Heiligendamm summit in Geneva. To get involved there is laborious and neither spectacular nor media attention - but rekindle the long term may be "sustainable", as colorful flash in the pan around the fence at Heiligendamm.
Jens Martens is co-editor of W & E and managing director of Global Policy Forum Europe in Bonn.
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