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The long battle against neo-liberalism: despite appearances, the G-20 trade group, which meets in Melbourne in November, does not signal a new or more inclusive approach to world trade.

Article Excerpt
Somewhat incongruously, an image of Uluru adorns the Group of Twenty homepage to signify that Australia is chair for this trade grouping for 2006. Below Uluru is an image of something that seems almost as permanent and immovable: Federal Treasurer Peter Costello, announcing that the forthcoming annual meeting of the G-20 will be held in Melbourne over the weekend of 18-19 November.

It's easy to be confused by the shifting trade groupings that have emerged over the last decades: the G-7 and G-8, the G-22, G-33 and the G-77, to name just a few. The most economically powerful of these is the G-8. The United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Japan form the G-7 and have been meeting since 1975 as the leading industrial nations of the Global North. Since 1998, the G-7 expanded to a G-8 with the post-Cold War inclusion of Russia. In contrast, the G-77 (first formed in 1964, it is now made up of 132 countries) is an alliance formed by nations in the Global South to advocate collectively for the interests of developing countries.

Emerging in 1999, the G-20 is made up of members that cut across...

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