“For the first time in many, many years,” the poorer nations of the world “refused to be steamrolled by the United States and the European Union,” said Ram Reddy, reporter for widely-circulated daily The Hindu, at a forum entitled, “The G-20: A Passing Phenomenon or Here to Stay?” While the government bureaucrats taking part in yesterday's forum agreed unequivocally with his positive appraisal, participating members of civil society voiced a number of qualms with the organization of Latin American, African and Asian nations, which includes India, China and Brazil.

Foremost among their grievances was the G-20's limited scope, focusing primarily on agriculture, and its refusal to consider any solution to the problems of globalization other than further trade liberalization. But this did not prevent importance from being placed on the group's efforts.

“[The G-20] derailed the Cancun ministerial meeting,” said Filipino activist Walden Bello, and this alone demonstrates its importance and power. But, in order to accomplish something in the long-term, “We must keep the pressure on the G-20, to expand their scope beyond the WTO.”

Bello also spoke of the G-20 as a potential forum in which to create an “alternative power center,” one based on “South-South cooperation.”

Joao Vaccari, International Secretary of the CUT labor union, agreed that pressure must be applied to the governments of the G-20 in order to attain real victories, voicing a desire to see the group include other development issues in its agenda. Only by broadening its scope could the group serve as a real global counter-power to the United States-dominated WTO, which “perpetuates a system that transfers wealth from developing countries to developed countries,” thus continuing a centuries-old legacy of colonial exploitation.

The central demand of the G-20's platform is an end to agricultural subsidies in the United States and the European Union. Indian Special Secretary of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry S. N. Menon justified the group's narrow concerns with the claim that, “in the WTO, agriculture has always been the core of the negotiations,” and that this has held true at both the Uruguay and the Doha, Qatar rounds of negotiations. Further, he insisted that since 656 million Indians depend on agriculture for their livelihood, a reduction of trade restrictions was the only thing necessary to level the global playing field.

Ambassador Clodoaldo Hugueney from the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs agreed with Menon's stance, asserting that the U.S. and the E.U are placing so much pressure on the G-20 countries because the latter are trying to fundamentally shift the balance of power in the WTO. When South African activist Dot Keet suggested that the G-20 must strengthen their position on non-agricultural issues, and that an elimination of subsidies combined with widespread privatization was both unwise and unjust as an impetus for development, Hugueney responded that, “The world is unjust. It is not that the WTO is unjust, the world is unjust.”

Menon, for his part, seemed more open to civil society demands of the G-20, saying that because different developing countries have different economic strengths and interests, the member nations must discuss these issues further in order to present cohesive platforms on issues other than agriculture.

The decision of the G-20 nations to walk out of the WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun this past September was initially hailed as a landmark victory for both the anti-coporate globalization movement and for developing nations in general. Since then, however, the group has done little to strengthen its position, and the decision by the U.S. at the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting to pursue bilateral trade agreements with individual countries seems aimed at undermining international resolve to create more balanced agreements.