ABSTRACT
The Group of Seven/Group of Eight (G7/G8) system has generated a great deal of varied and often significant documents in the course of its work. Documentation of G7/G8 ministerial meetings varies greatly. Finance ministers usually issue a chairman’s summary or other statement at the end of their meetings, but there have also been meetings without public statements and, conversely, statements without formal meetings. The two main broad types of G7/G8 summit documents are economic and political. From the outset of the G7, summits have always issued a single communique covering a whole gamut of economic subjects and supported at times by an annex or a background document. The communique is presented by the leader of the host country with considerable ceremony. An interesting development occurred before the 1995 Halifax Summit when, on 6 June, Canadian New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Nelson Riis released to the press a draft communique dated 27 May 1995.
