United Nations Parliamentary Assembly - Legitimacy and Accountability

Legitimacy and Accountability

One of the main purposes for the creation of a UNPA is enhancing UN accountability and legitimacy. The United Nations System spent more than $1.8 billion of public money in 2005 and its own auditors have pointed out that it lacks adequate internal controls to protect against waste, fraud and mismanagement. By holding hearings, issuing reports, and passing resolutions, the UNPA could exercise oversight over other UN bodies. In a September 2007 press release, MEP Graham Watson expressed his hope that "in an era where the UN's mandate has grown exponentially the UNPA would act as a watch-dog on its activities, monitoring its decision-making deadlines, its accountability and transparency". London Mayor Ken Livingstone opined, "a more democratic United Nations as envisaged by this campaign will strengthen the accountability and legitimacy of the UN." The Pan African Parliament's resolution mirrored this sentiment: "If democratization is a major means to legitimize and improve national governance, it is also the most reliable way to legitimize and improve international organization, making it more open and responsive by increasing participation."

Canadian Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., argues in The Case for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly that even an indirectly elected UNPA consisting of delegates appointed by national parliaments could create additional checks and balances by providing for oversight by a parliamentary body that would be independent of member nations' executive branches. It would open up the global policymaking process to a larger group of elected officials by shifting some power from the relatively small executive branches of countries to the larger legislative branches. According to Roche, globalization has tended to increase the power of the executive branch while marginalizing the legislative branch; for instance, U.S. Presidents since George H. W. Bush have been given fast track authority to negotiate trade agreements, subject to a "yea or nay" scrutiny by the U.S. Congress on the negotiated deal. A Property and Environment Research Center report argues that changes in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are another example of how international regulation removes checks and balances between the branches of government: "The OECD was created by a 1961 treaty, ratified by the U.S. Senate, to help achieve economic growth. In April 1998, a ministerial meeting reinterpreted the treaty, adding social and environmental considerations to the economic ones. The United States executive branch agreed to the changes, but the Senate had no opportunity to debate this treaty, even though it was significantly different from the 1961 treaty. The executive branch had essentially negotiated a new deal without Senate approval." World Federalist Canada Briefing Paper No. 30, however, suggests that UNPA proposals may spark opposition from the executive branches that stand to lose power: "Experience has shown that civil servants and diplomats working in national foreign ministries are less likely to support or see the need for a UNPA. They view the UN as a forum for discussion among sovereign states; whatever action the UN takes is a result of bargaining and compromise among member states".

A significant practical obstacle to a completely democratically elected and representative UNPA is that, in contrast to the situation in which the European Parliament functions, a significant number of UN members, including populous countries such as China are not electoral democracies. In the past, bodies such as the United Nations Commission on Human Rights were criticized for being dominated by abusive regimes. If UNPA representatives were to be drawn from member nations' parliaments, it could create legitimacy concerns since some national legislatures are regarded as a rubber stamp for the rulers' decrees. Some global parliament proponents, such as Prof. Lucio Levi, propose starting a federation limited to democracies: "Though the democratization of states all over the world hasn’t been completed, this does not preclude starting the democratization of the UN. Six Western European countries founded the European Community, starting its democratization without waiting for the democratization of the institutions of all the European states." UNA-USA's Jeff Laurenti notes the problems associated with excluding undemocratic countries from membership: "It is one thing to deny membership to a few small "rogue" dictatorships. It is quite another to exclude China, the vast majority of Arab countries, and two-thirds of Africa, and imagine that the resulting body can have a formal consultative or oversight role with United Nations agencies, be part of UN-sponsored negotiations on multilateral conventions (the real work of international legislating), or pass on the resolutions of UN political bodies."

UNPA proponents frequently counter by pointing out that most of the world's countries are democratic.