United Nations Parliamentary Assembly - History

History

Proposals for a parliamentary assembly in the global organization of nations date back to at least the 1920s, when League of Nations founders considered (and rejected) plans to include a people's assembly as part of the League's structure. League and UN founding documents include few mechanisms for direct participation by citizens or legislators, aside from Article 71 provision allowing ECOSOC to grant consultative status to certain organizations, and the Chapter XVIII and XIX requirements that ratification and amendments be approved by member states "in accordance with their respective constitutional processes" which typically involve legislative and/or public input. In 1945, a people's world assembly was proposed by British politician Ernest Bevin, who said in the House of Commons that "There should be a study of a house directly elected by the people of the world to whom the nations are accountable."

On 16 October 1945, before the UN Charter had even entered into force, retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Owen J. Roberts and former New Hampshire Governor Robert P. Bass held a conference in Dublin, New Hampshire, which passed the Dublin Declaration. It stated that the UN Charter was inadequate to preserve peace and proposed the transformation of the U.N. General Assembly into a world legislature, opining, "Such a government should be based upon a constitution under which all peoples and nations will participate upon a basis of balanced representation which will take account of natural and industrial resources and other factors as well as population. It cannot be based on treaties...in which the states...act and vote as states". It called for "limited but definite and adequate power for the prevention of war." Grenville Clark and other participants in the Dublin conference went on to become active in the United World Federalists (UWF) and the global World Federalist Movement. UWF enjoyed some success in the postwar period, as 23 state legislatures passed bills supporting the organization’s goals, but McCarthyism prompted many prominent members to resign lest Senator Joseph McCarthy ruin their careers. In the United States, internationalism came to be associated with communism.

In the post-Cold War era, several factors contributed to a more favorable environment for UNPA proposals. A Trilateral Commission report notes that the shift from a world led by the two rival Soviet- and U.S.-led blocs meant a general diffusion of power. Growth of economic interdependence, proliferation of transnational actors, nationalism in weak states, spread of technology, and increasing numbers of issues (such as global environmental problems and weapons of mass destruction containment) that are both domestic and international generated stronger incentive to develop international cooperation than ever before. Democracy in general had spread; in 2003, Freedom House counted 121 electoral democracies, compared to 66 in 1987 and 30 in 1975 (although by the mid-2000s, the trend appeared to have stagnated). The rapidly integrating European Union, a unique supranational body whose European Parliament was gradually growing in power, provided an example to the world of how a multi-nation parliament can evolve and function. The World Trade Organization and similar organizations generated great concern as they seemed to be gaining more influence and control over trade disputes, yet were not accountable to the people; U.S. President Bill Clinton opined, "We must insist that international trade organizations be open to public scrutiny instead of mysterious, secret things subject to wild criticism." A "new diplomacy" seemed to be taking shape in which NGOs and governments cooperated to create new global institutions such as the International Criminal Court. U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy Chairman Harold C. Pachios of Preti, Flaherty, Beliveau & Pachios noted:

In early 1993, the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on External Affairs and International Trade presented a report stating, "By way of building the public and political constituency for the United Nations, the Committee recommends that Canada support the development of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly." The Campaign for a Democratic United Nations (CAMDUN), the International Network for a United Nations Second Assembly (INFUSA), and the Global People's Assembly Movement (GPAM), began circulating UNPA proposals around 1995, and other organizations, such as One World Trust, began publishing analyses of how to proceed in the current political situation. On 8 February 2005, on the initiative of the Committee for a Democratic UN, 108 Swiss Parliamentarians signed an open letter to the Secretary-General calling for the establishment of just such a body. On 14 May 2005, the Congress of the Liberal International issued a resolution stating that "the Liberal International calls on the member states of the United Nations to enter into deliberations on the establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations." On 9 June 2005, the European Parliament issued a resolution that contained an item stating that Europarl "calls for the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) within the UN System, which would increase the democratic profile and internal democratic process of the organisation and allow world civil society to be directly associated in the decision-making process; states that the Parliamentary Assembly should be vested with genuine rights of information, participation and control, and should be able to adopt recommendations directed at the UN General Assembly; " In 2006, Citizens for a United Nations People's Assembly circulated a petition to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to "convene a High Level Panel to determine the steps required for the establishment of a Peoples' Parliamentary Assembly within the United Nations Organization"

In April 2007, international NGOs launched the International Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, the principal current movement for the establishment of a UNPA. Its Secretariat is led by the Committee for a Democratic U.N. Over 150 civil society groups and more than 550 parliamentarians from all over the world are taking part in the Campaign. As of November 2008, CEUNPA's appeal was endorsed by around 2400 signatories from over 120 countries, among them hundreds of parliamentarians, civil society leaders, leading academics and distinguished individuals such as former UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the President of the Pan-African Parliament, Gertrude Mongella, Academy Award winner Emma Thompson, SF-author Sir Arthur C. Clarke and Edgar Mitchell, former NASA astronaut and sixth human being to walk on the moon. On 25 September 2007, the statement by H.E. Mr. José Sócrates, Prime Minister of Portugal, on behalf of the European Union, at the United Nations 62nd Session of the General Assembly, General Debate, stated, "We remain committed to the reform of its main bodies in order to enhance the Organization's representativity, transparency and effectiveness." On 24 October 2007, the Pan African Parliament unanimously adopted a resolution calling for the establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations, noting, "in contrast to regional international bodies such as the African Union, the European Union, the Council of Europe, or Mercosur, the United Nations and its specialized organizations is one of the last international fora lacking an integrated and institutionalized Parliamentary Assembly."So far, four international conferences of CEUNPA have taken place.

One of the most influential and well-known pro-UN organizations, UNA-USA has been on both sides of the issue. In 2003, UNA-USA's executive director of policy studies, Jeffrey Laurenti, wrote an article, An Idea Whose Time Has Not Come, arguing that there were important unresolved issues of inclusivity, authority, and efficiency with the UNPA. UNA's position seemed to reverse in November 2006, when the 38th plenary session of the World Federation of United Nations Associations issued a resolution stating that it "Supports the establishment of a United Nations parliamentary Assembly as a consultative body within the United Nations system as a voice of the citizens; Calls upon the governments of the United Nations member states, parliamentarians and civil society representatives to jointly examine possible steps and options to create a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly."

According to Stefan Marschal, the post-World War II years, particularly the 1980s and 1990s, saw tremendous growth in parliamentary assemblies, with more than 40 established since 1949. About 42% of the world's parliamentary assemblies are formally affiliated with an intergovernmental organization; 32% are informally affiliated; and 26% are unaffiliated. The spread in parliamentary assemblies was spurred by acceptance of parliamentarism as a means of legitimizing decisions; initiatives for intergovernmental cooperation reaching a point at which stronger parliamentary backing was needed; and regional integration. However, many global organizations, such as the UN and WTO, still lack a parliamentary assembly and "have been heavily criticized for what is supposed to be an institutional deficit."

On 9 February 2010, a resolution of an international conference of sitting and former judges of the supreme courts of over 30 countries that took place in Lucknow, India, called for a revision of the United Nations Charter and for the establishment of a world parliament.