John Kirton

John Kirton is the director of the G8 Research Group, established at the University of Toronto in 1987. In 1992-93, he served as a Special Projects Officer in Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, devising a strategy for Canada's G7 participation. He has conducted media analyses of the G7/G8 Summits on behalf of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. He served on the Foreign Policy Committee of the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, an advisory body to the Prime Minister of Canada, and participated in the preparations for the 1995 Halifax Summit. He was a member of the Canadian Government's International Trade Advisory Committee from 1995 to 1997.

Professor Kirton is an Associate Professor of Political Science, a Research Associate of the Centre for International Studies and a Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Toronto. He has advised the Canadian government on G7 participation and international trade and sustainable development, and has written widely on G7/G8 summitry. Professor Kirton is the Principal Investigator of "Strengthening Canada's Environmental Community through International Regime Reform" (the EnviReform project). He is editor of the G8 and Global Governance Series published by Ashgate, which includes The G8's Role in the New Millennium (co-edited with Michael Hodges and Joseph Daniels, 1999), Shaping a New International Financial System: Challenges of Governance in a Globalizing World (co-edited with Karl Kaiser and Joseph Daniels, 2000), Guiding Global Order: G8 Governance in the Twenty First Century (co-edited with Joseph Daniels and Andreas Freytag, 2001), New Directions in Global Economic Governance: Managing Globalization in the Twenty-First Century (co-edited with George von Furstenberg, 2001), and New Directions in Global Political Governance: The G8 and International Order in the Twenty-First Century (co-edited with Junichi Takase, in press). Professor Kirton is also co-editor, with Paolo Savona and Michele Fratianni, of Governing Global Finance: New Challenges, G7 and IMF Contributions (Global Finance series, Ashgate, 2002).