Statements

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

In the future, I see a World Parliament in which every human being will be represented by a process of free elections. It will foster a culture of peace in which war will be unthinkable. It will promote an increasing awareness of the spiritual dimensions of human beings.

Frank K. Kelly, Author and peace activist, founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, speechwriter for U.S. presidential campaigns, 2002

Power exists at the international level whether we like it or not. A parliament for the planet is not a question of removing further powers from nation-states or from their citizens, but of democratizing those powers that are already being wielded supranationally.

George Monbiot, English writer, columnist and political activist, 2002

As more and more issues increasingly demand global solutions ... we need to strengthen institutions for global decision-making and make them more responsible to the people they affect. This line of thought leads in the direction of a world community with its own directly elected legislature.

Peter Singer, Moral philosopher, Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, 2002

The United Nations would probably have to rest on two pillars: one constituted by an assembly of equal executive representatives of individual countries, resembling the present plenary, and the other consisting of a group elected directly by the globe's population in which the number of delegates representing individual nations would, thus, roughly correspond to the size of the nations.

Václav Havel, President of the Czech Republic (1993-2003), 2000

The world needs ... to establish an effective World Parliament - and elections to it based on population - which will represent the people, not their governments. ... This new World Parliament would enact legislative policies in a democratic manner. Perhaps a bicameral legislature is the most feasible with both a Parliament of peoples and a General Assembly of nations.

Paul Kurtz, In commemoration of Paul Kurtz (1925-2012). From the "Humanist Manifesto 2000: A Call for a New Planetary Humanism", drafted by Paul Kurtz, professor of philosophy, and signed by 130 personalities from over 30 countries, among them ten Nobel laureates, 1999., 1999

It is inconceivable that world affairs should remain the monopoly of the executive branch of national governments. This major flaw in democracy and remnant from the past must be corrected. At least to begin with, a UN Consultative Parliamentary Assembly should be created.

Robert Muller, Co-founder of the University of Peace in Costa Rica, Assistant United Nations Secretary-General, longtime UN civil servant, 1995

We need a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, where our directly elected representatives can monitor and contribute to the performance of executive governments. They do need help. Those who have been practising double standards need the realisation that the representatives of the citizens of this planet are close by, watching, and alert to expose all unethical international behaviour.

Erskine Childers, Former BBC correspondent and UN senior civil servant (1967-1989), 1994

A United Nations Consultative Assembly constituted [by national parliamentarians] could play an important role in the formulation and execution of United Nations' policies. Though it would be only an advisory body, its opinion would carry weight, especially if its members succeeded in raising themselves beyond national ambitions and in approaching the issues from a global point of view

Louis B. Sohn, U.S. delegate to the 1945 San Francisco conference that established the UN, 1949