Media release - Monday 23 April 2007

"Citizens need a voice in global affairs"

Political leaders and civil society activists call for U.N. Parliamentary Assembly

Several hundred political leaders, among them 378 MPs from 70 countries, have joined to call for the establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations (UNPA). The joint appeal states that, in an age of globalization, citizens need to be vested with a stronger voice in global affairs. The call is the core of an international campaign which is being launched through a series of events in more than ten countries.

The appeal is supported by 550 political leaders, VIPs and civil society activists from 89 countries. It has broad political support across party lines and world regions. Among the endorsers are also over 20 acting and former national Government Ministers including two former Prime Ministers and six former Foreign Ministers, the President of the Pan-African Parliament, four Nobel laureates and 80 professors.

The document recommends "a gradual implementation of democratic participation and representation on the global level". To achieve this, the appeal says that the establishment of a consultative UNPA is "an indispensable step". "A Parliamentary Assembly would make the U.N. more transparent, more efficient and more democratic", says former U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, one of the signatories of the appeal and patron of the next milestone in the campaign, a conference planned for October.

Initially the UNPA could be composed of a small number of representatives from each national parliament. However, the appeal suggests that over time, the assembly should be vested with "genuine rights of information, participation and control" and could eventually be composed of directly elected members. In the long-run, the campaign thus envisages the UNPA to evolve into a world parliament.

The campaign is being organized by several non-governmental organizations, among them the Secretariat of the UBUNTU Forum and the World Campaign for In-depth Reform of International Institutions, the Society for Threatened Peoples International, the World Federalist Movement and 2020*Vision Ltd. The campaign’s Secretariat is led by the Committee for a Democratic U.N.

Presentations are scheduled for Berlin, Berne, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Dar Es Salaam, Dhaka, London, Madrid, Mumbai, Ottawa, Rome and Vancouver.