Workshop on a UN Parliamentary Assembly held in the Dominican Republic

Last March 26, a workshop on a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) was held at the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. 54 Lawyers from the master’s program took part in the event and discussed an array of topics in relation to the establishment of a UNPA.

The participants were divided on different working groups whose goal was to clearly analyze the UNPA campaign proposal and to come up with specific questions that the event's organizer, Dr. Rommel Santos Diaz, would answer later. After an interesting and diverse discussion was held in each group, participants agreed on a list of 5 issues that they wanted to address.

To start with, workshop participants committed themselves to assist the efforts to make the campaign as visible as possible. Secondly, a task force was created whose goal it is to follow up on the conclusions that came up from the workshop and share that information with other NGOs and universities that might be interested in the campaign’s progress. Thirdly, a general consensus was made, stating that help should be given to Dr. Rommel Santos with regards to the work related to the campaign. Fourthly, they reached an agreement related to the development of a short-term plan for 2017 whose goal it is to expand the debate regarding the UNPA campaign to cover as many social groups from the Dominican Republic as possible. Lastly, Dr. Santos committed himself to establishing an active collaboration with the UNPA campaign’s international secretariat and to create a Facebook page for the UNPA campaign in the Dominican Republic.

The workshop shows once again that there is a growing support towards the establishment of a UNPA. The Dominican Republic is one of many countries from different regions around the world where support is growing and where the need to establish democratic governance at the international level is increasingly recognized.