KDUN
It is remarkable that major international organizations do not yet possess any formal parliamentary organ, not even in an advisory capacity. In particular, this is the case with regard to the UN, the WTO, the World Bank and the IMF. A United Nations Parliamentary Assembly would contribute significantly to overcoming an ever-growing legitimacy gap at the international level.
Claudia Kissling, Board member of the Committee for a Democratic U.N. in Berlin, 2011
(C) University of Winnipeg
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
Elena Torre, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
The time is right to put into practice the principle "That which concerns everyone must be decided by everyone." The Security Council – with the five permanent members’ power of veto – more often than not serves only to block decisions adverse to those five, or even only one of them. Where really is democracy in the world today? We need a World Parliament which effectively represents all the peoples of the Earth.
Mario Capanna, Italian politician and writer, President of the Genetic Rights Foundation in Rome, 2010
© Eva Högl
Democracy is only complete if elected representatives take part in decision-making. That's why a parliamentary assembly also needs to be created for international organizations. It needs to be vested with adequate powers and shouldn't be a mere talking shop.
Eva Högl, Member of the German Parliament, 2010
© Widener Law School
Today democracy has become the touchstone for legitimate governance at the local, provincial and national levels. Perhaps the international system's greatest anomaly in our age of globalization is that it is not yet organized along democratic lines. It is time for a global parliamentary assembly.
Andrew Strauss, Professor of Law at Widener University School of Law, United States, 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
Office of the Maryland Governor, March 2012, CC BY 2.0
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
© Anne Peters
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
© Office of Senator Dallaire
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
United Nations
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
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
