The developed world tried very hard to get the developing world to accept their ``principles''. The developing world really could not see why principles that they had no part in drawing up had to be accepted without question. It rapidly became apparent that questioning the principles was not on --- certainly not at the conference.
This is where the naïvety of the South Africans came in. We fully expected there to be real debate (and compromise) at such a conference! One can understand this from the perspective of our recent history: one of political isolation form the outside world coupled with a vigorous internal tradition of debate and consensus building. We were shocked at the demand that we swallow the G7 principles or else (else being a G7 walkout?). The G7 on their side seemed shocked that we could seriously question basic principles at a conference without indicating our problems earlier and sorting them out long before the conference started --- who negotiates in public?.
My conclusion is that we could learn a lot from the Egyptians on the art of international technico/political conferences. The G7 could do well to hide their overbearing arrogance a bit better. Our Department of foreign Affairs should work out a much better strategy for technical negotiations. Such negotiations are conducted as preliminaries to conferences. The G7 did convey the importance of their eight principles to the Department of Foreign Affairs. However during the discussion the South African delegation at the pre-conference meeting could not evaluate the implication of these principles. When the principles were relayed to the technical teams (of the NITF) we did not understand the urgent need for immediately indicating our misgivings to the pre-conference negotiations.
Technical and legal experts should be taken to such pre-conference meetings. These should be real technical experts. The way to do this is to involve groups such as the NITF more closely in the actual government delegations. Such bodies need this since they lack the diplomatic and political awareness on what is needed in advising politicians.