ABSTRACT
Whether the GS will make this large systemic contribution depends critically on just how potent it has been in advancing conflict prevention in these few short years. There is room for considerable doubt about both its performance and potential (KUhne and Prantl2000). Many argue that the venerable, established United Nations, replete with a formal charter, big budget, and massive bureaucracy all its own, should be the dominant actor in conflict prevention, as in all other peace and security tasks. Indeed, the powerful Permanent Five (P5) members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) may well end any effort to dilute its special status through the construction of a separate, GSbased security institution. Other critics of the GS charge it with having only an episodic interest in most subjects, implying that the 1999 concern with conflict prevention inspired by Kosovo and Germany will quickly pass as other political priorities and summit hosts exert their pull. Still others see the G7/8 as essentially an economic institution with a limited claim to newer global or transnational issues, and thus a body poorly equipped, intellectually and institutionally, to deal with any security subject. And even those who credit the G7 /8 system with considerable ability to arrive at timely, well-tailored commitments across a wide array of issue areas, still call into question how ambitious and significant its collective commitments are, and whether its member countries will comply with them in the months and years after each annual summit ends.
