(But record is uneven across different summits, countries, subject areas) (700) By Andrzej Zwaniecki Washington File Staff Correspondent Evian, France -- Yearly summits of the major industrial democracies have enabled their leaders not only to generate "ambitious" and "timely" commitments across a wide range of international issues but also to achieve a "substantial" level of compliance with those commitments, a research groups says. In a report released May 31 on the eve of the Group of Eight (G-8) Summit in Evian-les-Bain, France, researchers said that while compliance scores across different summits, G-8 countries and subject areas have varied, the overall trend is toward making good on promises made at G-8 summits. "It does send a positive signal in overall terms," says Ella Kokotsis who led the research conducted by the University of Toronto G-8 Research Group. But Kokotsis said the 2002 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, resulted in overall compliance of only 35 percent across major issue areas, the lowest score since the 1997 Denver summit. The G-8 comprises the Group of Seven industrial powers -- Canada, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States -- plus Russia. Kokotsis said that the progress made since the 2002 summit in areas such as the fight against terrorism and environmental protection has been overshadowed by little or no progress in numerous areas such as trade liberalization, agricultural trade and peer review in African countries. The Kananaskis compliance scores also varied widely by country, the researchers said. Canada received the highest score followed by France and Britain, with the United States in the middle. Researchers said these scores are consistent with earlier studies that suggest that a country hosting a summit is likely to comply more with commitments made at that summit than with ones made in previous years. Russia and Italy complied the least with the Kananaskis commitments, researchers said. Researchers said that compliance depends on a number of factors such as the direct involvement of leaders in the implementation process and the strength of their belief in the effectiveness of collective action. Kokotsis said that an important factor affecting compliance is the extent to which participation is limited to major players. Summits succeed most when the leaders have the opportunity to exchange views in an atmosphere of free and open dialogue, she said. The record shows that overall compliance levels have been negatively affected by a tendency to invite more leaders from non-G-8 countries. 18 leaders participated in the 2002 summit and French President Jacques Chirac, the host of the 2003 meeting, has invited a record number of leaders from non-G-8 countries, including the presidents of China and India and numerous African leaders. Another factor contributing to the successful implementation of G-8 pledges is leaders' personal commitment. Popular leaders who are able to forge domestic consensus on how G-8 agreements will be implemented and push through related legislative changes are more likely to make good on their summit commitments, researchers said. Another key to a summit's success is the ability of the leaders to "accurately sense that they collectively can and must act against acute global challenges," researchers said. They said that the fight against terrorism provides the best example of how effective collective response can be when the leaders are fully committed and have feeling of playing an equal part in it. The leaders scored a "perfect" mark on the implementation of counterterrorism pledges they had made at the 2002 summit, Kokotsis said. On the other hand, when the leaders do not have a sense that an issue is of overriding importance, compliance suffers. She said this was the case with agricultural reform in the period following the 2002 summit. An increasing involvement of ministers in the summit process correlates positively with G-8 compliance scores, researchers said. "The growth of ministerial and official institutions takes the pressure off leaders by allowing others to prepare and implement G7/G8 consensus and commitments within their areas of expertise," they said. The fact that there is no G-8 forum for agricultural ministers might have contributed to a lack of progress in talks on agricultural trade, Kokotsis suggested.