LOS ANGELES — By themselves, summits aren't inherently stupid or ill-fated. They don't always have to be little more than parades of preening peacocks.

Former President Jimmy Carter is right to be proud of the 1978 Camp David accords that led to cooled-down tensions between Egypt and Israel. And there's no question that the 1985-88 summits between then-President Ronald Reagan and then-General Secretary of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev helped usher in the end of the Cold War.

And — from an Asia-Pacific perspective especially — not enough credit has been given to former President Bill Clinton for dramatically choosing to attend the 1993 APEC meeting in Seattle. His decision to become the first U.S. president to attend this annual Asian leader get-together instantly upgraded a gooey gabfest into a serious summit-level event.

Not surprisingly, then, expectations are generally high for the annual G8 (Group of Eight Industrialized Nations) summit that convenes in Scotland today. Hosts British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, British chancellor of the Exchequer, have pledged to focus the G8 participants and their delegations on tough issues like African poverty and global warming. Those are worthy matters for world leaders to go summiting about.

Already, the United States and Japan have substantially increased their aid pledges to Africa — and that's a good thing. But it might be wise not to get our hopes up too high. International institutions, from the World Trade Organization to the United Nations itself, are hitting a bit of a rough patch these days. To a large extent their difficulties arise from the way they are structured.

For the G8, the cynic could suggest that this summit will wind up adding to, rather than subtracting from, the totality of global warming — simply by the predictable mass-production of rhetorical hot air! Cynics could also suggest that Africa in all probability will wind up no less impoverished afterwards — precisely because African poverty is no easy fix and the leaders of the G8 know it.

As a matter of fact, one chief obstacle to Africa's economic development derives from the protectionist import policies of those very G8 member nations themselves. Just look at who is in the G8 club. Besides the United Kingdom, you have Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States. African poverty would be thunderstruck with the potential for millennial economic improvement if Western trade barriers were suddenly and substantially lowered. African exporters would be able to sell more of their products in the world market than they can now because of artificially unfavorable tariff barriers.

So, one problem with looking to the G8 to solve this kind of issue is that one cause of the problem is the members of the G8. More than anything else, in fact, the G8 can be said to symbolize the world's growing inability to field international organizations that properly represent contemporary reality.

Consider the comparable question of another major international organization: the United Nations Security Council. Right now a battle royal is being waged over expanding the number of permanent members. From the fierce pitch of the fight, one might imagine that the expansion under proposal would admit all sorts of riffraff.

Not so — one leading idea is to make permanent members of Japan, India, Germany and Brazil. And why not? Japan is the world's No. 2 economy — it should be a permanent member. So should India with its suddenly growing economy and a billion people. Germany is only the third largest economy in the world, and Brazil is only the most populous nation in South America.

At this writing, however, it looks like little will happen. Why? Well, right now Beijing, which ought to be taking the long view, is foolishly smarting about Japan for doing this and not doing that; a petulant Washington is still irritated with Germany for opposing the Iraq war. And so India and Brazil sit behind in waiting — blocked by the opposition to Japan and Germany.

The present prospect for the long-overdue expansion of the U.N. Security Council, this year at least, is not good. As with the prospects for the G8 summit in Scotland taking a serious bite out of African poverty or slowing global warming, the enemies of change are in charge of making the change.

UCLA professor Tom Plate, a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy, is founder and director of UCLA's Media Center.