World's longest scarf dedicated to world peace and global democracy

To promote world peace and global democracy over 700 women from across India and other countries joined efforts to knit the world's longest scarf measuring 14.09 kilometers. A certificate of the Guinness World Records was presented on May 21 to the founder of Mother India’s Crochet Queens, Subashri Natarajan, in Chennai.

“This was the result of four months of intense involvement by more than 700 members from across the country and the globe who wished to do something for society,” Ms. Natarajan said according to a report in The Hindu.

The women who participated hope to spread the message of peace and solidarity across the world. As Ms. Natarajan explained, the initiative which was carried out in association with the Indian Skill Development Council supports the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly.

By now, the world-record scarf was dismanteld into nearly 5400 individual pieces, most of which will be donated to local NGOs across India. Around 900 scarfs will be sent to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and heads of state and government. "We will deliver the message to the UN that a citizen-elected Parliamentary Assembly is needed as a step towards global democracy," said Ms. Natarajan.

"We want peace in this world," she added.

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.

Guidelines for a classroom exercise on a UN Parliamentary Assembly

The co-conveners of the World Government Research Network, Luis Cabrera and James Thompson, have prepared a simulation exercise on the issue of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) that may be of use for classroom teaching.

The suggested exercise engages students in evidence-based debate on whether to support the development of an initially consultative UNPA. Suggested student instructions and readings are included in the document (download PDF here).

The simulation gives students the opportunity for active engagement with dialogues on more participatory international institutional development. It should deepen student understanding of existing international organizations and lead them to think more critically about accountability issues in global governance.

According to the authors of the guideline this lesson is well suited for tutorials/quiz sections in large undergraduate lecture courses, or for standard sessions in upper-division courses. It can be used in a wide range of courses in International Relations, political theory, political sociology, political economy, human geography, and other fields. Versions of it have been conducted in IR and political theory courses, with very positive student engagement and feedback.

Boutros-Ghali Observatory launched in Paris

Inaugurated at an event in Paris on March 31, the Boutros-Ghali Observatory is a new initiative promoted by the French, Canadian and Belgian governments which seeks to improve peacekeeping operations in Francophone countries. As many as 7 out of 16 United Nations peace operations are currently located in countries where French is frequently spoken. The observatory, by focusing on better tailoring peacekeeping missions to Francophone environments and pooling Francophone countries’ experiences together, could thus make a significant impact on the UN’s operations.

The Observatory also intends to act as a nexus for cooperation between experts from Francophone countries. Indeed, the Observatory’s own Research and Information Group on Peace and Safety (GRIP), headquartered in Brussels, is already involved with researchers from the Catholic University of Louvain/Leuven (Belgium) and the Network for Peace Operations (Canada).

The Observatory’s ethos is embodied by its homage to the late former U.N. Secretary General, Mr. Boutros-Ghali (1922-2016). In addition to his work at the U.N., Mr. Boutros-Ghali also served as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt. His commitment to peaceful international relations had brought him to help negotiate the Camp David accords. He also showed a keen interest in the French language and, following his term as Secretary General, served for five years as Secretary General of the Francophonie.

Mr. Boutros-Ghali was also one of the most important supporters of the Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. In a message addressed to the campaign's supporters he wrote in 2007 that "we need to promote the democratization of globalization, before globalization destroys the foundations of national and international democracy. The establishment of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations has become an indispensable step to achieve democratic control of globalization.”

 

Jens Orback

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.

Global Parliament of Mayors launched, attracts support

The Global Parliament of Mayors has recently welcomed in its ranks its new high-profile member, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles. The GPM was founded last September 2016, based on the ideas outlined by political theorist Benjamin Barber in his 2013 book, “If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations, Rising Cities”. Barber’s key argument is that cities, rather than nation-states, will be the drivers of future change.

According to Barber cities have accrued considerable power during the Twenty-First Century by becoming home to over half of the world’s population and contributing approximately 80 percent of global GDP. More importantly, he argues that local officials tend to practice a pragmatic and innovative style of governance.

Past initiatives have already shown the efficiency of inter-city collaboration. For instance, the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, a network of ‘megacities’ dedicated to reaching environmental targets such as the Paris Agreements, has resulted in a massive ‘scaling-up’ of local initiatives such bike-sharing programs.

The GPM, by creating an international forum for local officials, will allow Mayors to discuss and develop solutions for the most pressing issues facing cities today. Information-sharing could improve the living conditions of citizens everywhere as urban policies with a proven track-record would quickly spread across nations.

Advocates of the GPM have also pointed out that cities’ commitment to diversity and progressive-leanings could become a valuable bulwark to the rising tide of far-right nation-states.

Less than a year since its inception, the GPM already brought together over 60 local officials, including Mayor Giorgos Kaminis of Athens, Mayor Park Won-Soon of Seoul and Mayor Sanjeev Nayyar of North-Delhi.

As Benjamin Barber himself puts it: “If you’re down, if you’re feeling dispirited, if you’re feeling nothing works, have a second look at cities”.

Shortly after its launch 10 years ago, the international Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly recognized the global importance of cities and determined that “consideration may be given for the inclusion of local authorities in the consultative UN Parliamentary Assembly”.

Read more

4 February 2013: Cities and their role in global governance, an important debate

Mohamed Fadhel Mahfoudh

Convinced by the Tunisian revolution and the following democratic transition, I was also convinced of the urgent need to create a strong democratic connection between the people and their government. To face the global economic, social and environmental challenges, the international governance system needs a democratic revolution as well. With the support of the people and the necessary democratic legitimacy, elected representatives in a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly could work efficiently to find new global solutions, to fight poverty and the consequences of climate change. We need to act now and implement democratic principles at the largest scale of government if we want them to survive the recent rise of nationalism that is threatening peace and international understanding.

Harry van Bommel

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.

Prize competition for innovative models of global governance

The Global Challenges Foundation, founded in 2012 in Sweden, announced last November the launch of the ‘New Shape’ competition. The prize rewards the model of international governance which would address most efficiently urgent global threats such as “climate change, large-scale environmental degradation, violent conflict and extreme poverty”. At stake are US$5 million in prizes for the best ideas that re-envision global governance for the 21st century.

The Foundation’s objective is to raise awareness about political and environmental risks, as well as encourage innovative thinking. Its founder, Swedish investor Laszlo Szombatfalvy, became a billionaire by developing a new method of risk management on the stock market. Today, he is convinced that the consequences of global warming are severely underestimated by world leaders and that the old system of international governance is unable to cope with the challenges which lie ahead.

“We urgently need fresh new thinking in order to address the scale and gravity of today’s global challenges, which have outgrown the present system’s ability to handle them”, stressed Mr. Szombatfalvy in an open letter on the competition.

The competition is open to all. Participants can register their interest until February 15. Proposals have up to May 2017 to be submitted, and the final decision will be made in November 2017 by a panel of academics and experts. Meanwhile, the Foundation hopes to generate worldwide debate and momentum around the idea of international reform.

Despite being disappointed by the short-sightedness of the global community regarding global warming, Mr. Szombatfalvy remains hopeful: “Our industrial development has indeed caused some of the problems we now face, but I firmly believe that human ingenuity, having brought us this far, will also manage to find solutions to them”.

New Israeli NGO supports global democracy and a world parliament

Event of “One World – Movement for Global Democracy” in Tel Aviv

Recently a new group was established in Israel to promote “democratic political processes at all levels.” At their latest event in Tel Aviv on October 25th One World’s co-founder and director Oded Gilad presented the vision of a “federal world system” in which “all countries, and all people, are represented at the global level in a world parliament.”

Speaking to an audience of around 40 people Gilad explained how “the many malfunctions of Israeli democracy” are rooted in a gulf between “the local scale of our democratic mechanisms and the global scale of market forces” because “consumers and investors are able to operate and unite on a global level, while citizens are restrained by the fact of their citizenship and are limited by the borders of their states.”

According to Gilad, “it is this imbalance of power in the current global social structure that poses one of the greatest and least addressed threats to the democratic institutions in all democratic states. Expecting local states and their officials to properly check and balance global market forces is a highly naive and idealistic approach.” As “the best possible step” into the direction of closing this gap, Gilad endorsed the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly as this would provide the citizens of the world with “a representative framework for uniting their power” at the global level.

One of the goals of One World is to advance the international Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly in Israel by building support in the parliament and by carrying out general education. To date, seven current and former members of the Israeli parliament have endorsed the campaign’s appeal for a UN Parliamentary Assembly: Uri Avnery, Yossi Beilin, Zahava Galon, Dov Khenin, Haim Oron, Ibrahim Sarsur, and Tamar Zandberg.
One World calls on the Israeli government to endorse steps towards a UN Parliamentary Assembly.

The event in Tel Aviv was held as part of this year’s Global Week of Action for a World Parliament.

One World's website

Top image: Participants holding the slogan "World Parliament Now!" Credit: One World