Back in blog land after a week in France (more on that later). Today's news about the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad - and some grumbling from the host citizenry about being cut off from their own country - brought forth this brain wave: let's designate a nice island, somewhere in the world, as "Summit Island."
"Summit Island" - Mont Saint Michel (photo above left) on the Norman/Breton coast probably won't do - would be a secure, sunny, standardized summit venue for all such groups: Summit of the Americas, G-20, G-8 (if they insist on maintaining that outdated group), NATO, climate change, UN, OPEC, AU, and EU. All of them.
Ideally, the island would be leased long-term from a needy developing country - Cape Verde in the Atlantic off the African coast might have an available uninhabited island, though water supply and port/runway might have to be arranged. They would be paid handsomely for supplying experienced, vetted, and multilingual personnel from their existing tourism industry. There are plenty of "private islands" too.
Local citizens, instead of being walled off from their usual shopping districts (see NATO Summit in Strasbourg), would simply be over the horizon. No fear of disruption by the usual assortment of anarchists or other professional protesters, who seem to sniff out every such summit and are duly filmed by the news media for their efforts. Landing rights would be for official parties, period.
This move would only confirm what is already a common practice among national hosts. George W. Bush, playing host to the 2004 G-8 Summit, chose Sea Island Georgia (inhabited mostly by wealthy Republicans) as his venue. Seal off a couple of bridges to the mainland and you're in business. The place already is a resort.
The US has other offshore islands - here's lovely Catalina Island ("Santa Catalina, 26 miles across the sea") in the Pacific off Los Angeles. Again, the Catalina Chamber of Commerce probably could supply plenty of willing workers in these days of rising unemployment.
But I do think that the wealth should be spread around, and why not to those deserving Chagos Islanders, the "Ilois" who were (and remain) exiled from Diego Garcia and the other islands in the British Indian Ocean Territory (BIOT) when the US Navy turned the place into "The Footprint of Freedom." They certainly need the work, and the place is about the most secure site I can imagine for permanent summiteering.
Sherpas and others charged with preparing summits might tire of endless trips to the same island, and someone is bound to criticize the choice of venue ("politicians sun themselves on Alcatraz Island"), but we'd all eventually get used to it. Carbon miles would be minimized, and fresh fruit and vegetables could be flown in the Air Force One cargo hold. Local livestock could be raised on the sunny uplands of St. Helena. The possibilities are endless.