# 2012 G20 Los Cabos summit

The 2012 G20 Los Cabos Summit was the seventh meeting of the G20 heads of government/heads of state.

## Background

The final draft of G20 Toronto summit communique became the public announcement that the 2011 summit in France would be followed by a 2012 summit in Mexico.

## Preparations

Pre-planning for the summit began in 2010. In January, Mexican Deputy Foreign Minister Lourdes Aranda hosted a preliminary meeting in Mexico City. It was attended by "sherpas" (representatives) of the G20 foreign ministries.
The convention center was designed and constructed by Mexican architect Fernando Romero in a time span of seven months. It houses the largest green wall in the world, covering an area of 2,700 square meters.

## Agenda

Mexico believes the forum can better represent developing countries in both vision and policy. Under the leadership of President Felipe Calderón, Mexico will seek to expand the scope of the G20's development focus. Calderon also said of funding for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that "it’s going to be the first time the fund is capitalized without the U.S., which reflects the importance of emerging markets." Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega added that the BRICS countries were "going to make an additional contribution to the IMF that will be announced at the leaders’ meeting," in relation to similar amount announced by the group in April of about US$75 billion. European leaders were pressured by major economies to resolve the European sovereign-debt crisis after New Democracy won a plurality Greek legislative election in June.

## Attendance

The list below shows the leaders that have attended the 2012 G20 Leaders Summit.
| State | State | Represented by | Title |
| | Argentina | Cristina Fernández de Kirchner | President |
| | Australia | Julia Gillard | Prime Minister |
| | Brazil | Dilma Rousseff | President |
| | Canada | Stephen Harper | Prime Minister |
| | China | Hu Jintao | President |
| | France | François Hollande | President |
| | Germany | Angela Merkel | Chancellor |
| | India | Manmohan Singh | Prime Minister |
| | Indonesia | Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono | President |
| | Italy | Mario Monti | Prime Minister |
| | Japan | Yoshihiko Noda | Prime Minister |
| | Mexico | Felipe Calderón | President |
| | Russia | Vladimir Putin | President |
| | Saudi Arabia | Ibrahim Abdulaziz Al-Assaf | Minister of Finance |
| | South Africa | Jacob Zuma | President |
| | South Korea | Lee Myung-bak | President |
| | Turkey | Recep Tayyip Erdoğan | Prime Minister |
| | United Kingdom | David Cameron | Prime Minister |
| | United States | Barack Obama | President |
| | European Commission | José Manuel Barroso | President |
| | European Council | Herman Van Rompuy | President |
| Invited states ||||
| State | State | Represented by | Title |
| | Benin | Yayi Boni | President |
| | Cambodia | Hun Sen | Prime Minister |
| | Chile | Sebastián Piñera | President |
| | Colombia | Juan Manuel Santos | President |
| | Ethiopia | Meles Zenawi | Prime Minister |
| | Spain | Mariano Rajoy | Prime Minister |
| International organisations ||||
| Organisation | Organisation | Represented by | Title |
| | International Monetary Fund | Christine Lagarde | Managing Director |
| | Financial Stability Board | Mark Carney | Chairman |
| | Food and Agriculture Organization | José Graziano da Silva | Director-General |
| | International Labour Organization | Guy Ryder | Director-General |
| | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development | José Ángel Gurría | Secretary-General |
| | World Trade Organization | Pascal Lamy | Director-General |
| | United Nations | Ban Ki-moon | Secretary-General |
| | World Bank Group | Robert Zoellick | President |

## Sideline meetings

U.S. President Barack Obama planned, first, a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin which was expected to run for one-and-a-half hours and cover "projected deployment of missile shield in Europe, prospects of peace settlement in Syria and bilateral ties [including the] Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act". Obama and Putin made a joint statement about the Syrian uprising that read: "In order to stop the bloodshed in Syria, we call for an immediate cessation of all violence. We are united in the belief that the Syrian people should have the opportunity to independently and democratically choose their own future." It also followed Russia's intention to send two Russian warships, Nikolai Filchenkov and Tsezar Kunikov, with marines to its naval base in Tartus. As a result of the June Greek election, a bilateral meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the U.S. President Barack Obama on the situation in the eurozone was also planned.
10 Downing Street issued a statement that said British Prime Minister David Cameron had confronted Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner with a letter she had sent him in regards to the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands. She told him the issue should be resolved under the terms of United Nations General Assembly resolution 40/21 of November 1985. Cameron was reported to have said that "I am not proposing a full discussion now on the Falklands but I hope you have noted that they are holding a referendum and you should respect their views. We should believe in self determination and act as democrats here in the G20." The statement said that Cameron had confronted her "with vigour;" however, Argentine Foreign Minister Héctor Timerman said: "The president had the UN resolutions and she said to Cameron: 'Let's respect the United Nations'. The prime minister refused to accept the documents, turned his back and walked away without a farewell. After years of acting as a colonial power they have forgotten that they are responsible for the existence of colonialism, and that it is countries like Argentina that defeated most of the colonial projects in the world." The Prime Minister's Office later said that "we don't need an envelope from Fernandez to know what the UN resolutions say....All the UN resolutions do refer to the UN charter, which enshrines the principle of self-determination and that is what we are asking the Argentines to respect."

## The Convention Center

The Convention Center, located in Los Cabos, Mexico, was designed by the Mexican architect Fernando Romero. The distinctive element of the center is the green wall, the largest in the world, with an area of 2,700m$^2$