ABSTRACT
The thick veil of confidentiality that shields the G8 norm-making machinery from prying eyes has now been partially lifted. The reason for such a study into the G8 and the way in which it has developed its expertise in combating transnational organized crime and, more recently, terrorism was to achieve a better understanding of how this hybrid forum, which is more or less informal and thus hard to define and pin down, operates. The main goal has been to piece together the role played by these famous G8 experts who every now and then get mentioned in official statements by going behind the scenes and visiting the debating and negotiating chambers that are assiduously shielded from the camera lens and the media spotlight. G8 discourses on transnational organized crime have, like many other such discourses, thus helped to spread extremely simplistic, sometimes contradictory and always confusing images and representations of transnational organized crime and the tools used to oppose it.
