At its September summit in Pittsburgh, the Group of 20 leading economies in the world proclaimed themselves as the supreme global economic institution, replacing the increasingly flimsy and unrepresentative Group of Eight and outlining greater power for their new grouping. The dominant public reaction has been positive. After all, the G20 represents 85 per cent of the world's economy and two-thirds of its population and though large in number it is still small enough to be effective.

But the G20 actually violates fundamental principles of international co-operation by arrogating for itself important financial decisions that should be shared by all countries. In so doing it also emasculates the sovereign rights of small countries that have long been the prime defenders of multilateralism and international law as well as the foremost policy innovators. The rule of the big powers over the rest is in danger of becoming unjust and reactionary.

The G20 has no clear criteria of membership, only that big countries from different continents, originally selected by the US in 1999, should participate. Amazingly, this group of “20” leading countries is indeterminate in size. Apart from 19 countries, the European Union is also a member. Spain, the world's ninth largest economy, was left out, but it barged into the Washington summit last November. Holland just decided to join, and no one stopped it. After all, its economy is much larger than that of Argentina, a G20 member. An inter-national community based on the principle of gate-crashing deserves no respect.