RSS news channel of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/en.xml 07/29/2010 07/29/2010 The third World Conference of Speakers of Parliament closed last week in Geneva with the adoption of a declaration on the need to secure global democratic accountability. Eventually, over 130 speakers of parliament gave their assent to a text that was characterized by Neue Zürcher Zeitung, one of Switzerland’s leading newspapers, as being “unpretentious”. While the declaration states that “today’s multilateral systems should allow for much greater consideration for the thoughts, feelings and aspirations of people everywhere whose voices go unheard” and “called for greater parliamentary involvement in international cooperation”, the speakers assembled in Geneva seemed to disagree on the route to take. Turning to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), convener of the world conference and the umbrella organization of national parliaments, they affirmed in unison that the IPU is “the international body best suited to build the relationship between parliaments and the United Nations”. According to reports, however, speakers of parliament primarily from Western countries took offence at what was described as “ambitions towards a world parliament”. Abdurahim Abdi suggested a bold approach Image: IPU The Speaker of the East African Legislative Assembly, Abdurahim Abdi, for example had promoted the imposing vision that parliaments should be formally included into the decision-making at the United Nations. “For instance it can be made a requirement that every decision of the UN General Assembly or the UN Security Council is subjected to some form of a parliamentary process before it becomes binding. We can do this by strengthening the existing international parliamentary forums like the Inter-Parliamentary Union to co-determine with the UN General Assembly or Security Council the shape of world policies,” Mr Abdi stated. Amendment softens declaration The Emirates News Agency reported that an alliance of European and Arab Speakers succeeded to remove a passage from the declaration’s draft that was tabled at the conference that acknowledged the need to examine “all options” to strengthen the IPU, “including reforming its current Statutes and Rules, concluding an international convention on the IPU and entering into a new and significantly improved cooperation agreement with the United Nations.” Instead, the amended declaration merely included the softened statement that the Speakers welcomed “the discussion which has been started within the IPU in order to strengthen its functions, promote its efficiency and develop its cooperation with the United Nations and its institutions.” The Speaker of the German parliament, Norbert Lammert, stated in a speech that “the IPU is neither a world parliament nor a subsidiary organization of the UN and we also do not want it to turn into one.” According to Mr. Lammert, the presidents of all parliaments of the EU member states supported the suggested amendment. GulfNews reported that the Speaker of the Federal National Council of the United Arab Emirates, Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair, played an instrumental role in rallying support for the amendment by voicing concern that - based on the draft text -, the IPU could be “converted into a UN government organisation that lacks independence, democratic accountability and transparency.” New “parliamentary arm” for the UN proposed Abdul Aziz Al Ghurair called for a new "parliamentary arm" for the UN Image: IPU At the same time, however, Mr. Al Ghurair called “for establishing an international independent body representing peoples of the world to act as a parliamentary arm for the United Nations (UN) and hold any country - whatever big or small - accountable democratically if it flouts its international responsibilities as per principles of international law and legitimacy.” Emirates News Agency quoted Mr. Al Ghurair saying that he believes that “the new international accountability organisation should represent all peoples of the world and serve as a voice for principles of international justice. It's necessary for the UN to mull deeply creating such a parliamentary arm.” According to the report, Mr. Al Ghurair stressed that the new institution should not replace the IPU. The Secretariat of the Campaign for the Establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly affirmed that “a global parliamentary body is needed that eventually participates in decision-making at the UN and other international institutions and that is able to hold these institutions and their executives accountable. Such a body would not replace or duplicate the IPU’s functions.” Declaration of the 3rd World Conference of Speakers of Parliament Background paper on “The establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly and the role of the Inter-Parliamentary Union” Top image: Plenary of the conference, by Inter-Parliamentary Union 521 http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/521.php 07/29/2010 07/29/2010 More than forty Members of Parliament from Lithuania, the United States and other European, Latin American and Asian countries have launched a Parliamentary Forum for the Community of Democracies, a global intergovernmental coalition that celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. In accordance with the Community’s program, the new Parliamentary Forum is dedicated to promoting democratic rules and strengthening democratic norms and institutions around the world. In a declaration setting Was elected as President: Emanuelis Zingeris from Lithuania Image: Wikipedia up the forum, the parliamentarians hold that since “a parliament is the central institution of democracy, we commit to strengthen the role of national parliaments in our own countries and, in each of them, the functions of representation, legislation and oversight of the Executive.” Members of the Forum intend to meet regularly every year, make suggestions regarding the development of democracy around the world and share their experience of parliamentary work with transition countries and pro-democratic groups in authoritarian regimes. At a convening meeting in March this year in Vilnius, Lithuania, the forum elected Emanuelis Zingeris, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of Seimas of Lithuania, as President and created an international board consisting of seven Vice-Presidents. Long-time member of the United States House of Representatives Lincoln Diaz-Balart, one of the most active Canada’s fighters for human rights and democracy David Kilgour, German representative in the European Parliament Michael Gahler, who significantly contributed to Lithuania’s Euro-Atlantic integration, leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists group in the European Parliament Michal Tomasz Kaminski, one of the most active participants in the Prague Spring and former Czech Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Vondra, Speaker of the Georgian Parliament David Bakradze and Mexican Senator Adriana González Carrillo were elected as Vice-Presidents. In one of its first declarations, the forum urged the government of China to release Mr. Liu Xiabo, one of the drafters of the Charter 08, from  prison  immediately and endorsed his nomination for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. The Community of Democracies was founded in 2000 during a Ministerial Conference in Warsaw on the initiative of the then Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bronislaw Geremek. and former U.S. Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. Mr Geremek who passed away in July 2008, also supported the idea to establish a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly in order to promote democracy in international institutions. Website of the Community of Democracies Top image: Convening Meeting of the Community of Democracies Parliamentary Forum on 12 March 2010, held at the Seimas; by Olga Posaškova, Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania 520 http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/520.php 07/25/2010 07/25/2010 The need to develop “transnational planetary institutions to cope with global problems” is one of sixteen main principles included in a statement that was published recently by Paul Kurtz and other prominent humanists. According to the "Neo-Humanist Statement of Secular Principles and Values",   "all members of the planetary community" are "ethically obligated" to "transcend the arbitrary political boundaries of the past and help create new transnational institutions that are democratic in governance and will respect and defend human rights." The document states that these new transnational institutions “will need to adopt a body of laws which will apply worldwide, a legislature to enact and revise these laws, a world court to interpret them, and an elected executive body to apply them.” Drafted the statement: Paul Kurtz Image: Wikimedia The document that includes a call for an “eventual World Parliament” is signed by more than 100 well-known humanists including former U.S. Congresswoman Patricia Schroeder, Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker, writer Ann Druyan as well as philosophers Rebecca Goldstein, Colin McGinn, Philip Kitcher and Owen Flanagan. The statement is the latest public declaration of a humanist movement that has been shaped by similar documents in 1933, 1973, and 2000. It is not the first to endorse the notion of a world parliament. The “Humanist Manifesto 2000” that was published ten years ago already elaborated extensively on the need for “new planetary institutions.” Among other things it stated that “we need now more than ever a world body that represents the people of the world rather than nation-states.” The statement concluded that “perhaps a bicameral legislature is the most feasible with both a Parliament of peoples and a General Assembly of nations.” The new “Neo-Humanist” statement was issued in March of this year, apparently in the context of a schism that is ongoing in the humanist movement. According to the website of the newly established “Institute for Science and Human Values” that is chaired by Paul Kurtz, one of the leading figures in the humanist movement for over 30 years, the statement “will help guide the new organization’s activities.” Read the Neo-Humanist statement here Top image: Paul Kurtz at an event in New York in November 2007, by QwirkSilver, Creative Commons (Flickr) 517 http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/517.php 07/17/2010 07/17/2010 At a conference in Canberra organized by the Australian National University, experts have suggested the establishment of a world parliament on global climate policy. The new body, initially composed of around 550 delegates from national parliaments, could be set up as a consultative body to the Conference of State Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC. “Climate change is one of the most important issues of this century and an effective global response is urgent. We are convinced that a global parliamentary assembly could help to reinvigorate the negotiation process,” said Duncan Kerr, Australian Member of Parliament and one of the proposal’s three co-authors. Duncan Kerr MP presents the paper in Canberra Image: KDUN The paper presented in Canberra argues that a parliamentary assembly could help to improve the “significantly flawed” decision-making process of the UNFCCC. According to Duncan Kerr and his co-authors, the Argentinian Member of Parliament Fernando Iglesias and Andreas Bummel, chairman of the Committee for a Democratic U.N. in Germany, an agreement approved by a global parliamentary assembly “would have unprecedented legitimacy.” They state that “this legitimacy would exert moral pressure to join any post-Kyoto protocol and to secure compliance.” Mr. Kerr explained in Canberra that one of the parliament’s purposes would be to act as a formal platform to facilitate and organize public deliberation and to gather input from experts, civil society and from the grass-roots level. “By contrast to top diplomats who represent governments and report back to them, delegates of a parliamentary assembly would be ultimately accountable to their constituents. Their task would be to establish links to relevant groups and civil-society organizations on the spot and to interact with them,” said Mr. Kerr. The chairman of the European Parliament’s Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, Jo Leinen from Germany, welcomed the proposal. “A global parliamentary assembly would represent the common interest of humanity in finding an effective response to climate change. This perspective is urgently necessary to counterweight the bargaining of national governments,” said Mr. Leinen. “Just as the European Parliament originally started off as a consultative assembly of the European Community on Coal and Steel in the 1950ies, a world parliament may start as an advisory body on climate policy,“ Mr. Leinen added. The director of the Foundation for Democracy and Sustainable Development in the United Kingdom, Halina Ward, commented that “the proposal for a World Parliament on Climate Change tackles important issues about how to improve representation of the world's people in global climate governance. This is a carefully crafted proposal that deserves serious consideration.” The conference on “Democratizing Climate Governance”  in Canberra was held on 15-16 July. Download the paper "Democratizing Global Climate Policy through a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly" Top image: Lake Hume, Australia, by Tim Keegan, Creative Commons (Flickr) 514 http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/514.php 07/02/2010 07/02/2010 The Secretariat of the Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly announced today that the federal board of the German green party, Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen, has decided to endorse the initiative. “We share the view that democratic participation and representation gradually also needs to be implemented at the global level. Important international Claudia Roth during a speech in Göttingen in September 2007 Image: Wikimedia Commons decisions should no longer be taken by a few government representatives who meet behind closed doors. A global parliament would be well suited to make the United Nations more democratic and more transparent,” commented party chair Claudia Roth. The call for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly is supported by green parties all over the world. In the final declaration of the second global greens congress that met in May 2008 in Sao Paulo it is stated that the greens “support the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) as a parliamentary body within the UN system. As a first step it should be composed of representatives of national parliaments but it should become a directly elected body.” At that time, the chair of the Canadian greens, Elizabeth May, stated that “the resolution adopted by the congress underlines that the green movement is convinced that a dialogue is needed on the notion of a bi-cameral system at the UN.” The German greens are currently not part of the governing coalition in Germany. At the last elections in September 2009, however, the party got 10.7 percent of votes and won 68 parliamentary seats. From 1998 to 2005, the party designated the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer. Top image: Federal party conference of the Greens in 2009, by Jens Matheuszik, pottblog.de 511 http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/511.php 06/21/2010 06/21/2010 Civil society organizations in the Dominican Republic have formed a network to promote the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. This was reported by Fundación Federalista, the network’s initiator. According Rommel Santos, President of Fundación Federalista Image: Fundación Federalista to Rommel Santos, President of the foundation, fifteen leading Dominican organizations so far cooperate, among them Fundacion Nacional para la Democracia, Fundacion Seguridad y Democracia, Fundacion del Consumidor Dominicano and Instituto Nacional de Desarrollo e Investigacion de los Servicios Sociales. The network plans to raise awareness of the need of transborder democracy and will ask the Parliament of the Dominican Republic to join the efforts for a global parliament. "Over the past years, Fundación Federalista has run a series of talks, conferences and discussions on federalism and democracy in a globalized world. As more and more important decisions are being taken outside the framework of national democracy, we have to move forward and have to extend the reach of democratic participation and oversight. We request the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate of the Republic to follow the example of the Latin-American Parliament and to support the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly,“ said Mr Santos. By area and population, the Dominican Republic is the second largest Caribbean nation after Cuba. The population is estimated at 10 million people. Top image: Wikipedia / GFDL 506 http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/506.php