In this article the author talks about current changes in the international environment, that is of a certain re-balancing of international relations as between traditional actors, states and interstate structures, as well as relatively new, non-traditional participants with the current crisis situation in financial, economic, military and political sphere taken into account, and the ideological vacuum that has emerged. It is an open secret that a group of formerly peripheral countries, currently dynamic emerging systemically important economies, getting significant influence on the international relations, turning into rule-makers of the world politics, which has to be taken into account by the developed countries of the West. Thus it is important today to look again at the existing formal and informal institutions, primarily the G8, created in the middle of 1970s. To see how this mechanism is adequate to new political and economic realities, how it should adapt to changing conditions, and also what can be expected of such institutions from the point of view of international relations reform.

The publication is prepared within the framework of a joint project of Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC) Project and International Organizations Research Institute of the HSE "Increasing Effectiveness of Russia’s Participation in G8, G20 and BRICS in accordance with Russian Priorities and National Interests".