ABSTRACT
The G7/8 Okinawa Summit, taking place on 21-23 July 2000, faced several formidable challenges.1 The first was maintaining Japan's historic record, unique among G7 members, in hosting relatively successful summits (Bayne 2000b, 195; Putnam and Bayne 1987, 270). The second was living up to the impressive standard set by the previous year's high-performing German-hosted summit at Cologne in June 1999 (Kirton and von Furstenberg 2001, 285-294; G8 Research Group 1999). The third was addressing the many issues at the forefront of global concern. These began with the need to ensure a successful global recovery, beginning in Japan itself, after the 1997-99 global financial crisis (Kaiser, Kirton, and Daniels 2000). Those issues included modernising the international financial system to cope with the rapidly spreading new economy (Kirton and von Furstenberg 2001), fostering a more humane and credible form of globalisation, and designing a more coherent approach to global governance. They further embraced the need to broaden the process of G7/8 deliberation and decision making to involve the world's emerging market economies, its developing countries, and its many civil society actors. And because the 2000 Okinawa Summit took place in Asia, where the cold war had not yet ended, acute issues of arms control and regional security and the broader task of conflict prevention and human security arose.
