by Frankie Fouganthin, CC BY-SA 4.0
Humanity is a community of fate that is increasingly faced with cross-border challenges. That's why global decision-making is inevitable. Through a World Parliament we need to make sure that the emerging world order is democratic and as close to the citizens as possible.
Jens Orback, Secretary General for the Olof Palme International Center (2008-2016) and Minister for Democracy, Metropolitan Affairs, Integration and Gender Equality (2004-2006), Sweden
Convaincu par la revolution tunisienne et par la transition democratique qui s'en est suivie, j'étais également convaincu de l’urgente nécessité de créer un lien démocratique puissant entre le peuple et son gouvernement. Pour faire face aux défis économiques, sociaux et environnementaux mondiaux, le système de gouvernance internationale a également besoin d’une révolution démocratique. Avec le soutien des peuples et la légitimité démocratique nécessaire, des représentants élus dans une Assemblée parlementaire des Nations Unies pourraient travailler efficacement à élaborer de nouvelles solutions globales, pour lutter contre la pauvreté et les conséquences du changement climatique. Nous devons agir dès maintenant et porter les principes démocratiques à l’échelle de gouvernement la plus large, si nous voulons qu'ils survivent à la récente montée du nationalisme qui menace la paix et la l’entente internationale.
Mohamed Fadhel Mahfoudh, Ancien président de l'Ordre tunisien des avocats et membre du Quatuor du Dialogue national tunisien qui a remporté le Prix Nobel de la Paix en 2015
Bas Stoffelsen / SP, CC BY-SA 3.0
It’s my personal experience that Parliamentary Assemblies can work quite effectively, for example within NATO and the OSCE. The United Nations is - and should be - the world’s most important organisation where almost all of the world’s nations and peoples meet. It’s high time that the UN gets its own Parliamentary Assembly.
Harry van Bommel, Member of the House of Representatives of the Netherlands
795 million world citizens are suffering from chronic hunger. An elected UN Parliamentary Assembly may be a means to give these most vulnerable members of our global community a stronger voice so that the systemic international causes of their misery can be more adequately addressed.
Hilal Elver, UN Special Rapporteur on Right to Food, 2016
Global problems require global solutions. A World Parliament is precisely the forum which takes humanity's point of view, it's the institution which proposes nothing less than to save us all from our own limitations. The rumor of the day is that a group of powerful hawks is preparing the Third World War. We should hope that this rumor will be debated in public forums that are guided by nothing but reason.
Mario Bunge, Argentine philosopher, 2016
The UN is not an exclusive inter-state institution, it is meant to be an inclusive space for active engagement with the civil society and multi-stakeholders. Time is ripe for new actors to launch new initiatives in order for the many commitments declared at the UN to be fulfilled or put into actions. I have seen the great value of cross-boundary work on the promotion of freedom of religion or belief by parliamentarians around the world, hence, I believe in the great potentials that a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly has for strengthening the UN system overall.
Heiner Bielefeldt, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief and Professor of Human Rights and Human Rights Politics at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, 2016
Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
One weakness of the United Nations is that its Member States are represented solely through the executive branch. The involvement of additional actors such as parliamentarians and civil society is critical to democratizing the UN, and will go a long way towards making it more transparent, accountable and effective. That's why I support the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly.
Maina Kiai, UN Special Rapporteur on rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, 2016
© European Parliament
I support the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly as a first step toward an eventual world parliament. The UN Parliament and the Inter-Parliamentary Union could exist side-by-side: While the latter would continue to serve as a platform of national parliaments to discuss matters of mutual concern, the former would represent the world's citizens directly and deal with global political matters such as climate change or the refugee crisis.
Dimitrios Papadimoulis, Vice-President of the European Parliament from Greece, 2016
Democratic Alliance
Il est important pour moi de promouvoir la diffusion des valeurs de la démocratie constitutionnelle et de l'état de droit à travers le monde. Une Assemblée parlementaire des Nations Unies est un moyen approprié d'illustrer ces valeurs auprès de toutes les nations et de veiller à ce que les citoyens de chaque pays se sentent plus liés à l'ONU et à ses programmes.
Helen Zille, Activiste anti-apartheid, ancien maire de Cape Town et premier ministre du Cap occidental, juillet 2016.
iisd.ca
We need radical new forms of representation and oversight. Perhaps the UN General Assembly should have a ‘lower house’, populated by citizen-elected representatives; a curb on the excesses of dominant states in the upper house. Perhaps global governance institutions could be audited on their ability to respond to and achieve progress on issues identified by people, rather than just governments.
Dhananjayan (Danny) Sriskandarajah, Secretary General and CEO of CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, July 2016
tribune.com.pk
The United Nations needs to become more democratic and representative. With this goal in mind, member states have been debating a reform of the Security Council for more than three decades and still there's no agreeable solution in sight. For those who want to see progress, it's time to consider a complementary step: the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly. This assembly would represent the world's citizens, not the governments, and may achieve more in making the UN more inclusive than any expansion of the Security Council ever could.
Syed Naveed Qamar, Member of the National Assembly of Pakistan and former Minister of Defence, June 2016
