From the outset, the transatlantic relationship has been more than a mere marriage of convenience. It encompasses a community of states, which are committed to common values, ideals and interests. Europe and North America can look back on a common cultural and intellectual history and they are bound together by a cultural affinity.

Transatlantic relations have benefited from the conscious decision made by the US not to withdraw from Europe in 1945, as it had done after the end of the First World War but, rather, to maintain a long-term presence. This injected an element of stability into Western Europe, which made it possible to tackle the European integration project.

Naturally, there are also conflicts of interests and areas of friction within this community of values. The transatlantic community has never been a perfect community of interests. We are each other's cousins, not identical twins.

Current contentious issues are not limited to the military action by the United States against the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Europe and the U.S. also have divergent viewpoints on issues such as climate protection, the death penalty or relations with international organizations. However, leading politicians on both sides of the Atlantic know that it is in everyone's interest to deal responsibly with such differences.

The visit by President Bush to Brussels and to Germany at the start to his second term as American president has helped to refocus the transatlantic relationship.

A full day of speeches, discussions, and interaction on critical international issues.

MAIN SPEAKERS

Samuel R. Berger, Chairman of Stonebridge International and former National Security Advisor

Hans Blix, Chairman, Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission and former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq

Paul Collier, Professor of Economics, Oxford University

Philip Zelikow, Counselor of the Department of State and former Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission

CHECK IN 7:30 AM

BREAKFAST & WELCOME 8 AM - 9 AM

WELCOME

John Hennessy, President, Stanford University

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Coit D. Blacker, SIIS Director, and William J. Perry, former Secretary of Defense

MORNING PLENARY SESSIONS 9 AM - 12:30 PM

Hans Blix on the risks of a new nuclear arms race and Paul Collier on governance and democracy.

LUNCH 1 PM

SPEAKER

Philip Zelikow, The United States and the World

AFTERNOON SESSIONS 2:30 PM - 5:45 PM

Breakout sessions with Stanford faculty, policy-makers, international academics, and journalists, on issues such as reform of the United Nations, our energy future, U.S. policy in Korea, the future of U.S./European relations, Russia, international criminal justice and peace, global climate change, and international responses to infectious diseases.

PARTICIPATING STANFORD FACULTY & SCHOLARS INCLUDE

Donald Kennedy, Larry Diamond, Michael Armacost, Gi-Wook Shin, Stephen Stedman, Scott Sagan, Christopher Chyba, Lynn Eden, David Victor, Allen Weiner, Alan Garber, Amir Eshel, Kathryn Stoner-Weiss, Doug Owens, John McMillan, and Dan Okimoto.

RECEPTION 6 PM

DINNER 7 PM

SPEAKER

Samuel R. Berger, U.S. Foreign Policy: The Road Ahead.

This meeting will focus on the intersection of two crucial challenges for the organization of energy infrastructures in the developing world. First, for nearly two decades most major developing countries have struggled to introduce market forces in their electric power systems. In every case, that effort has proceeded more slowly than reformers originally hoped; the outcomes have been hybrids that are far from the efficiency and organization of the "ideal" textbook model for a market-based power system. Second, growing concern about global climate change has put the spotlight on the need to build an international regulatory regime that includes strong incentives for key developing countries to control their emissions of greenhouse gases. In most of those countries, the power sector is the largest single source of emissions. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol included mechanisms that would reward developing nations that cut emissions, but so far those systems have functioned far short of their imagined potential. A growing chorus of analysts and policy makers are expressing dissatisfaction with those existing mechanisms and clamoring for alternatives.

This meeting will offer diagnoses of what has gone wrong and what opportunities have nonetheless emerged. It will focus on practical solutions and look at the prospects for different technologies to meet growing demand for power while minimizing the ecological footprint of power generation. It will engage scholars who are studying the industrial organization of the electric power sector (and other infrastructures) in developing countries as well as those who study the effectiveness of international legal regimes. It will engage practitioners, including regulators and energy policy makers. Our aims are not only to focus on new theories that are emerging to explain the organization of the power sector and the design of meaningful international institutions, but also to identify practical implications for investors, regulators, and policy makers.

Presentations will include recent results from the research of Stanford Program on Energy and Sustainable Development. We will present the main findings from a comprehensive study of power market reform in five developing countries (Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa). We will also show the results from a detailed analysis of the greenhouse gas emissions from two key states in India and three provinces in China--a study conducted jointly with the Indian Institute of Management in Ahmedabad. In addition, we will present new conclusions from ongoing work that focuses on strategies for engaging developing countries in the global climate regime. Among the topics considered will be the prospects for accelerating the introduction of natural gas into electric power systems--especially those in China and India where the present domination of coal leads to relatively high emissions.