RSS news channel of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/en.xml 01/03/2012 01/03/2012 The World Future Council calls on the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development that will take place in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro to mark the 20th anniversary of the UN’s Earth Summit in 1992 to endorse the establishment of an “Ombudsperson or High Commissioner for Future Generations” at the international and national levels. “The establishment of the office of an Ombudsperson for Future Generations at the United Nations would be a step towards global democracy,” said the chairperson of the World Future Council Foundation, Jakob von Uexküll, at a meeting in London on Wednesday, December 21. “The purpose of this institution would be to safeguard the right of current and future generations to healthy economic, environmental and social conditions by representing and protecting their interest to sustainable development at the UN and in global policy-making. An independent Ombudsperson of this kind who can freely interact with the public and make recommendations would make the UN more open, more accountable and more democratic,” Mr. Uexküll added. The World Future Council (WFC) consists of around fifty respected personalities from all five continents and all walks of life. They represent governments, parliaments, the arts, civil society, science and the business world. According to the Council, “future justice is about remaking our governance frameworks – institutions, policies, and laws – so they facilitate just cooperation, broad-based participation, and an equitable sharing of resources and benefits of economic scientific and technological progress.” “For future justice to be effective, it is necessary that short-term vested interests are counterbalanced in global and national institutions with long-term joint interests of humanity. The proposed Ombudsperson is a first important step into this direction. In the long run, I believe that as a body of independent elected representatives, a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly would provide an excellent forum to introduce and emphasize the necessary global view,” Mr. Uexküll explained. According to the international “Appeal for the Establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations”, one of the body’s purposes would be to facilitate “collaborative efforts” of “all human beings” in order to ensure “the survival and well-being of future generations as well as the preservation of the natural foundations of life on Earth.” Top image: Group picture at one of the meetings of the World Future Council in 2011 608 http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/608.php 12/09/2011 12/09/2011 Discussion on Erskine Childers’ recommendations for renewing and democratizing the UN at 15th anniversary of his death The renewing and democratizing of the UN was the subject of an event held on Tuesday in The Hague to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the death of Erskine Childers, an Irish citizen and one of the UN’s “most outstanding international civil servants”, as the keynote speaker, Jan Pronk, remarked. Mr Pronk, himself a former UN official and former Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation who knew Childers, gave a sketch of the ideals originally underlying the UN’s foundation and described the development of the world organization. Referring to a collection of Childers’ speeches that was recently published by the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, Mr Pronk highlighted the broad range of recommendations that Childers put forward in order to strengthen the UN. “Childers always reminded his audiences of the roots of the UN that tend to be forgotten. The UN was intended to play a central role in international economic and social affairs. However, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, now the WTO, were allowed to escape from any meaningful central coordination. Just as in the days of Erskine Childers, we still need a new San Francisco conference that rearranges the United Nations and the Bretton Woods system”, the professor at the Institute of Social Studies in The Hague said. Erskine Childers was “one of the strongest advocates of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly after the Cold War”, the other speaker, Andreas Bummel, pointed out. The Secretary-General of the Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly presented the proposal and stressed that Childers considered the idea to be “the ultimately most important reform in the UN system” because the assembly would create a direct link between the world organization and the world’s peoples. “As Childers knew, this would create an unprecedented positive momentum”, Mr Bummel said. In 1996 until his untimely death in the same year, Childers served as Secretary-General of the World Federation of United Nations Associations (WFUNA). Ten years later, in memory of Childers, WFUNA adopted a resolution that expressed the organization’s support for the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly. The event was jointly organized by the World Federalist Movement of the Netherlands (WFBN) and the Dutch United Nations Association (NVVN). The discussion was moderated by Yvonne Donders, Chair of NVVN and professor at the University of Amsterdam. Collected speeches and articles of Erskine Childers Pictures of the event Top image: Marjolijn Snippe at the opening of the event, by Nicola Fraccaroli 602 http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/602.php 12/09/2011 12/09/2011 India should approve of proposal, says former foreign minister Nearly forty sitting members of parliament from India cutting across party lines, around half of them each from the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, support an appeal addressed to the UN and the governments of its member states “to establish a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations.” According to the statement “a gradual implementation of democratic participation and representation on the global level” is recommended. The list of Indian lawmakers that have endorsed the proposal includes current union minister Vilasrao Deshmukh, union ministers of state Saugata Roy and Dinsha Patel as well as former union ministers Mani Shankar Aiyar, Saifuddin Soz and Shashi Tharoor, the latter of whom served as junior foreign minister in Manmohan Singh’s cabinet from 2009 to 2010. Commented Shri Deshmukh, union minister of science, technology and earth sciences: “Yes, I support the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly and it would be good if the proposal is seriously considered by the United Nations.” “Of course a lot of details need to be investigated. Still the government of India could express at the UN General Assembly that in principle it regards the proposal of a UN Parliamentary Assembly with favor,” said Shri Tharoor at a meeting with representatives of the Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly in Delhi on Thursday, 8th December. Indian experience instructive Shyam Benegal, the renowned director and screenwriter who is a member of the Rajya Sabha, declared his support of a UN Parliamentary Assembly recently. "When India was granted independence, skeptical observers said that so remarkably diverse a country in terms of religion, language, and culture could not maintain a representative democracy. Yet, despite these doubts, that is exactly what India has done. Today similar doubts are often expressed with regard to global democracy. Based on our experience, I believe that obstacles can be overcome and that first small steps to build democracy at the global scale are now necessary and possible,” Shri Benegal argued. Former union minister Mani Shankar Aiyar added that "at Independence, Jawaharlal Nehru said, 'We look upon the world with clear and friendly eyes.' One proof of that would be Indian support to a World Parliament." Supporters of the appeal for a UN Parliamentary Assembly from India also include BJP vice president Najma Heptullah who served as a member of the Rajya Sabha for four terms and who was president of the Inter-Parliamentary Union from 1999 to 2002, the worldwide umbrella organization of national parliaments, or eminent individuals such as Professor M.S. Swaminathan who was considered by Time magazine "one of the most influential Asian people of the 20th century" and Ela Bhatt, founder of SEWA and a member of The Elders. Indian lawmakers that support the campaign Read more 30 March 2009: Event in Delhi: "India could play a significant role in a UN Parliamentary Assembly" Top image: Parliament buildings in Delhi, Source: Flickr, Creative Commons, by Couche Tard 600 http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/600.php 12/03/2011 12/03/2011 At a session held in Montevideo, Uruguay, on Friday, the Parliament of the South American community Mercosur (Parlasur) declared its endorsement of "the creation of a Parliamentary Assembly within the United Nations, with the goal of strengthening the effectivity, transparency, representativity, plurality and legitimacy of the institutions that are part of the UN system." The brief resolution that was passed unanimously by around ninety lawmakers from the Mercosur member states Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay furthermore expressed Parlasur’s commitment to support efforts towards the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly. "If we want the United Nations to remain the cornerstone of international affairs, it needs to be renovated and modernized. In our global age that must mean primarily that the UN changes from an exclusive club of government executives to an open and democratic forum of the world community that reflects the diversity of its member states. To achieve this, the UN needs a parliamentary body," said Fernando Iglesias, a lawmaker from Argentina and Co-Chair of the international Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly. "The citizens of South America want that change," Mr. Iglesias added. The Parliament of Mercosur is the fifth regional parliament that has endorsed the call for a UN Parliamentary Assembly. Since 2007, the Pan-African Parliament, the Latin-American Parliament, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and the European Parliament have adopted similar resolutions. The Argentine Chamber of Deputies and the Senate have also supported the call in 2009 and 2010. Full text of the resolution (Spanish) Top image: Parlasur session on 2 December 2011 in Montevideo, Uruguay, by Parlasur Further reading 08 June 2011: Call on EU Council to support UN Parliamentary Assembly adopted 12 December 2008: Latin-American Parliament backs proposal for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly 594 http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/594.php 12/01/2011 12/01/2011 The case for the creation of a global parliamentary assembly as a means to democratize global governance is the core theme of a new volume of collected works by Richard Falk and Andrew Strauss. In the articles and essays that appeared in journals such as Foreign Affairs and newspapers like The International Herald Tribune between 1997 and 2010 the professors argue that the world needs a popularly elected global body in order to seriously address the democratic deficit of intergovernmental organizations. In the book’s preface former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt concurs that democracy, to be effective, needs to extend beyond state borders. “How exactly this can be done calls for a great deal of creative thought, but such thought has not been forthcoming. In fact, most commentators on global governance seem hopelessly mired in the existing system. This is why the arrival of this book is a breath of fresh air,” he wrote. The authors are renowned legal scholars. Richard Falk is professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University and visiting professor in global and international studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Andrew Strauss is the Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development and a professor of international law at Widener University School of Law. The book is entitled “A Global Parliament: Essays and Articles.” Published by the Committee for a Democratic UN in Berlin with support from the EarthRise Society in Munich, the book is available from major online bookstores such as Amazon.com and Barnes and Nobles. More details Top image: Book cover, KDUN 592 http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/592.php 11/01/2011 11/01/2011 The establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly was one of the subjects of an academic conference organized by the German United Nations Association (UNA-Germany) at the end of last week in Berlin. Scholars from across Germany gathered at the Japanese-German Center of the Free University of Berlin to speak about "Trends towards more Global Democracy". Fifteen years after the publication of an "Agenda for Democratization" by then UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali the conference sought to assess the state of affairs. The document of the former UN Secretary-General - who is a prominent supporter of the Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly - was a starting point of the two-day discussions. The proposal for a UN Parliamentary Assembly was presented at a panel by Peter Spiegel, vice chairman of the Committee for a Democratic U.N. in Berlin. Mr. Spiegel argued that democratizing the UN was also a measure to promote democracy internationally. He prompted to ask the question why the democracies of the world "obstruct efforts for democratizing international organizations." Earlier Professor Lothar Brock with University of Frankfurt dealt with the question of what the democracy deficit at the UN is and explained why he supports the proposal for a UN parliament. In the course of his presentation, Professor Brock touched upon many of the subjects of the conference such as the embedding of democracy in the self-conception of the UN, preconditions for democracy, models of democracy, interdependency of democracy at the nation-state and international levels, forms of legitimization, need of legitimacy and possible consequences. With regard to a UN Parliamentary Assembly, the participants did not reach a common standpoint. Broad agreement was reached on the assessment that democracy is anchored in the values of the UN and that the world organization's legitimacy needs to be improved. UNA-Germany plans to publish the presentations of the conference in a German-language compilation. The meeting built on a first conference on world law organized by UNA-Germany in November 2008. Top image: One of the panels, left in the picture Peter Spiegel, Source: Committee for a Democratic U.N. 587 http://en.unpacampaign.org/news/587.php