The G-8: Venerable Club of Donor Nations

John J. Kirton

John Kirton is Director of the G-8 Research Group and Codirector of the G-20 Research Group, the Global Health Diplomacy Program, and the BRICS Research Group - all based at Trinity College at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto. A professor of political science, he teaches Canadian foreign policy, global governance, and international relations. He has advised the Canadian and Russian governments, the World Health Organization, the Pan American Health Organization, and the International Bankers' Federation on G-7/8 and G-20 participation and summitry, international trade, and sustainable development; and has written widely on G-7/8 and G-20 summitry. He is the author of the forthcoming G20 Governance for a Globalized World (Ashgate, 2012) and Canadian Foreign Policy in a Changing World (Thomson Nelson, 2007). Among other recent publications are Securing the Global Economy: G8 Global Governance for a Post-Crisis World (coedited with Andreas Freytag, Razeen Sally, and Paolo Savona, Ashgate, 2011), Borders and Bridges: Canada's Policy Relations in North America (edited by Monica Gattinger and Geoffrey Hale, Oxford University Press, 2010), Making Global Economic Governance Effective: Hard and Soft Law Institutions in a Crowded World (coedited with Marina Larionova and Paolo Savona, Ashgate, 2010), and Innovation in Global Health Governance: Critical Cases (coedited with Andrew F. Cooper, Ashgate, 2009). He is also coeditor of a three-book series published by Ashgate Publishing, including the Global Finance series and the Global Environmental Governance series; and editor of Ashgate's five-volume Library of Essays in Global Governance. Kirton is coeditor of several publications dedicated to the G-8, the G-20, and the BRICS published by Newsdesk Media, including BRICS: The 2012 New Delhi Summit (2012), The G20 Cannes Summit 2011: A New Way Forward (2011), The G8 Deauville Summit 2011: New World, New Ideas (2011), The G20 Seoul Summit 2010: Shared Growth Beyond Crisis (2010), and G8 & G20: The 2010 Canadian Summits (2010).

Alexei Monsarrat

Alexei Monsarrat joined the Atlantic Council in 2008 as Director of the Global Business and Economics Program. Mr. Monsarrat previously spent six years with the US State Department in the Bureau of Economics, Energy, and Business Affairs (EEB), where he worked on a range of issues with transatlantic partners, including economic development and poverty reduction, post-conflict reconstruction, strategic economic policy relations, and energy issues. Mr. Monsarrat served at the State Department in many capacities, including as Senior Advisor to the EEB Assistant Secretary, Special Assistant to the Under Secretary for Economics, and Special Assistant to James Wolfensohn, the Quartet Special Envoy for Gaza Disengagement. He also served as a civilian in Iraq with the Coalition Provisional Authority. Mr. Monsarrat joined the State Department as a Presidential Management Fellow after obtaining his master's degree in international affairs from the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). Prior to his studies, he was a program administrator for a nongovernmental organization engaged in international trade and the environment and worked for several years on Capitol Hill, including on the Senate Agriculture Committee. He has a bachelor of arts in political science from The George Washington University and is a native of Vermont.

Richard S. Williamson

Ambassador Williamson is a Principal in Salisbury Strategies, LLP, a consulting firm; Senior Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute. Williamson has served in and out of government for many years. Among his government posts have been: Assistant to the President for Intergovernmental Affairs in the Reagan White House, Ambassador to the United Nations Offices in Vienna (including the International Atomic Energy Agency), Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, Member of the President's General Advisory Committee on Arms Control, Ambassador to the United Nations for Special Political Affairs, Ambassador to the UN Commission on Human Rights, and as the President's Special Envoy to Sudan for George W. Bush. He also served as one of the seven members of the Panel of Eminent Persons on Strengthening the Effectiveness of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. He has been the Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor of International Studies at Northwestern University, the Sharkey Distinguished Visiting Scholar of UN Studies at the Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University, and currently is a Visiting Scholar and Buffett Fellow at Northwestern University. Williamson is a member of the Executive Committee on the Board of Directors of Miami Corporation. He formerly served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago, and a Senior Vice-President of Beatrice Corporation. For many years while not in government service, he was a partner in the international law firms of Winston & Strawn and Mayer, Brown and Platt. He is the author of eight books and more than 200 articles that have appeared in various journals and popular periodicals, and editor of three books on a wide range of public policy issues. His most recent book is titled America's Mission in the World. He received his B.A. with honors from Princeton University and his J.D. from the University of Virginia where he was Executive Editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law.