Globalization has transformed the relationship between the individual and the world community, and made necessary the need for practical measures to democratize global governance. A UN Parliamentary Assembly would be an important step in the right direction.

Lloyd Axworthy, Former Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, President of the University of Winnipeg, 2010

I can imagine that a democratic world parliament comes into being and that this world parliament tackles the problems which actually should already be handled today: Environmental pollution, the development of the economical and ecological conditions for living together, or the prevention of war. We need world laws today.

Uri Avnery, Israeli writer, former Member of Parliament and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement, 2009

The trend of the globalization of public policy issues will continue and cannot be ignored. It is necessary to build democratic principles into global governance. The creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly composed of national legislators could be part of the solution.

Mike Moore, Former Director-General of the World Trade Organization and former Prime Minister of New Zealand, 2009

The establishment of parliamentary assemblies in the Bretton Woods Institutions, the WTO, and the UN seems worth trying as a first and relatively modest building block of a democratization of global governance.

Anne Peters, Professor for International and Public Law at the University of Basel, 2009

So many of my current causes, projects and interventions in the Parliament of Canada have a single common denominator - the urgent need to transform the United Nations System, to make it more accountable and more responsive to the collective needs, and rights, of the world's citizens. A UN Parliamentary Assembly would be an important step in the right direction.

Roméo Dallaire, Canadian Senator, former force commander of the UN Assistance Mission for Rwanda, 2008

The Pan-African Parliament ... stresses the potential of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly to increase the efficiency, transparency and democratic character of the United Nations and international co-operation; ... notes that in a first preliminary step [the assembly] could be composed of national parliamentarians, but that eventually it should be directly elected by universal adult suffrage.

Pan-African Parliament, From a resolution in support of a UN Parliamentary Assembly adopted by the Pan-African Parliament on October 24, 2007

We need to promote the democratization of globalization, before globalization destroys the foundations of national and international democracy. The establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the UN has become an indispensable step to achieve democratic control of globalization.

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Former UN Secretary-General, 2007

A parliament at the United Nations would symbolize the notion of humanity as a community of world citizens.

Günter Grass, Nobel Laureate in Literature, 2006

We are struggling badly in the world, and we have not adopted a proper solution to our problems. In order to have a globally organized world, we also need global structures. We need a global parliament.

Lech Wałęsa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, co-founder of Solidarność and President of Poland 1990-95, 2004

Parliamentary oversight of the multilateral system at the global level should be progressively expanded. We propose the creation of a Parliamentary Group concerned with the coherence and consistency between global economic, social and environmental policies, which should develop an integrated oversight of major international organizations.

Tarjo Halonen, From the report of the World Commission on the Social Dimension of Globalization co-chaired by Tarjo Halonen, President of Finland (in the picture), and Benjamin Mkapa, President of Tanzania, 2004