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with few conditions attached, to the old Un organisations that have been unable
to persuade their own members to provide the necessary sums (Drohan 2005;
lewis 2005). acknowledging the failure of the old international organisations
to deal adequately with the HIv/aIDS pandemic and arguing for a human right to
health, these critics highlight the low level of financial commitments made by the
G8 to provide antiretroviral therapy (art) in developing countries. they also note
the political lobbying of the U.S. government for the protection of the intellectual
property rights of the world's big pharmaceutical companies and the G8's easy
acceptance of a dominant america's approach. Stephen lewis (2005), an advocate
formerly employed by the Un as Special envoy on HIv/aIDS in africa, has referred
to this placement of intellectual property rights and international trade law above a
human right to health as 'mass murder by complacency'. a second cause he regularly
refers to is the common attitude of racism shared by G8 members and others in a
largely wealthy, white west. the third cause, he says, is the 'thinly disguised neo-
colonial manipulation' that maintained the G8's 'unbroken record of betraying their
promises' through to the Gleneagles Summit in 2005 (31, 149).
a second school sees the G8 as having a much broader role, but failing to deliver
the promising new directions now required to promote global health (labonté and
Schrecker 2004; labonté
et al. 2004; labonte, Sanders, and Schrecker 2002). Here
the G8's failure to improve health outcomes in the face of a new generation of
disease flows from the collateral damage caused by its members' attachment to neo-
liberal principles in the economic and social policy areas that are vital in generating
health. as ronald labonté and his colleagues (2004, 228) put it, 'with respect to
such an agenda that begins seriously to redress the human health and development
catastrophes arising in the wake of contemporary globalization, the G8's response
can best, if disturbingly, be described as “fatal indifference”'.
a third school locates the cause in institutional rather than ideological factors,
notably the G8's search as an informal, summit-level institution for short-term
public relations success as part of its leaders' domestic political management back
home (Foster 2002, 2003; 'G8 Failed' 2003). this view of the G8 as an informal
institutional failure asserts that the G8's proper role goes beyond merely supporting
the Un. but the G8's focus on other issues and its narrow audience lead it to fail.
thus, in the lead-up to the 2002 Kananaskis Summit, John Foster (2002) concluded
that 'other priorities and photo opportunities may transcend the issue of follow-up
and fulfilment' on the G8's global health file.
a fourth school argues, in contrast, that the G8 is emerging as the global
health governor of last resort, as a consequence of the poor performance of the
old multilateral organisations and the high technical and economic capacity of G8
members (Price-Smith 2001, 2002). this school sees the Un organisations as having
failed in addressing the world's new health needs. It thus perceives the G8 as a
useful supplement, gap filler, and insurance policy for an inadequate WHO. andrew
Price-Smith (2001, 178-179) concludes that the G8's recent involvement in health
stems from this weakening of the wHo, and from the G8's ability to pick up the
pieces from the failed global health institutions. He argues that the technical and
