Obama Administration Blocking Reform at the UN Financial Crisis Summit?
We sent this memo to reporters yesterday:
Is the Obama Administration Working With the EU, Canada to Block Real Reform at This Week’s UN Financial Crisis Summit?
Wealthy Nations Send Only Low-Level Reps; Insist Communiqué Calls for WTO Doha Round Conclusion Even as Doha Agenda Includes More Financial Service Deregulation
This week, government representatives will meet in New York for what was to be an unprecedented, inclusive high-level global debate about the causes of and solutions to the financial crisis. The summit was called to remedy the significant shortcoming of the G-20 summits, which excluded most of the 192 United Nations (UN) member nations, promoted only minimal reforms to the global economic architecture and pushed further financial deregulation by calling for completion of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Doha Round talks.
Instead of the UN summit remedying the problems of the G-20 approach, reports indicate that rich countries have worked behind the scenes to ensure the UN summit does not focus on the role of existing global economic governance structures in causing the crisis nor issue a call for reforms to these institutions and policies. In a candid speech this weekend, the elected president of the UN General Assembly, Nicaraguan priest Miguel D’Escoto noted: “...despite the growing need for major changes, many Member States, particularly those in the North, increasingly resist reforms of the IMF and the World Bank, hoping that things will return to business as usual. And they have also made it very clear that they do not want a serious global conversation to take place at the United Nations.”
Read the full memo after the jump, or download the PDF (with footnotes that are not included here).
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