Originally published on the CGS blog on November 10, 2015.
The United Nations is an organization of states, not of persons—even though that’s what the UN Charter promises. The UN is far from democratic. Yet it makes decisions that greatly affect citizens of the 193 member nations. Our representatives at the UN are sent there by the ruling party in each country. They do not represent all of the people. Many believe that there should be more opportunity for the world’s people to have a say in the decisions being made.
One method that has been proposed as a step in the direction of more democratic global governance is a World Parliamentary Assembly (WPA) or UN Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA). Former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali is among the supporters of this idea. Creating a UNPA will be difficult, of course. Many problems would need to be overcome, but the barriers are not insurmountable.
According to Joseph Schwartzberg’s Transforming the United Nations System: Designs for a Workable World, this development could occur through three stages of evolution:
- A WPA with only advisory power and representatives appointed or elected by their respective governments;
- A popularly elected body with gradually increasing legislative competence (exercised in conjunction with the General Assembly);
- Well into the future, a maximally democratic system in which national borders are often ignored and the number of constituents per representative is relatively similar everywhere.
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In June, the United Nations Association of Sweden (UNA-Sweden) decided to “express support for the proposal that a democratic UN Parliament should be established and gradually developed.”
The Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) is a global network of parliamentarians and non-governmental organizations advocating citizen representation at the UN. The Campaign’s statements are supported by individuals from 156 countries, among them 755 members of parliament, and 394 NGOs from all around the world.
