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Indian parliamentarians for a global parliament at UN
Thursday May 17, 2012 03:02:05 PM,
IANS
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New Delhi: In order to
improve the democratic character of global governance, Indian
parliamentarians have lent their support to a global campaign for
the creation of an elected global parliamentary assembly at the
United Nations.
Speaking Wednesday at the presentation of an Indian edition of a
new book titled 'A Global Parliament', Science and Technology
Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh said the proposal was "bold" and "worth
serious consideration".
"A largely consultative United Nations Parliamentary Assembly
could be created and national parliaments, including the Indian
parliament, could send elected representatives to the global
parliament," Deshmukh said.
Deshmukh further added: "I support an international campaign for
the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly which is endorsed by
more than 800 elected representatives throughout the world and
hundreds of leading personalities, among them over 45 members of
the Parliament of India. I hope that an elected global
parliamentary assembly will become a reality in our lifetime."
According to the authors, US professors Richard Falk, University
of California, and Andrew Strauss, Widener University, democratic
decision-making needs to be "extended to the global system".
"To begin with, a UN Parliamentary Assembly will be a consultative
body of UN General Assembly and will be the voice of the people
globally," said Lok Sabha member Shashi Tharoor.
"For practical reasons, the representatives to the UN
Parliamentary Assembly should be elected by the national
parliaments of different countries so that even non-democratic
countries such as China could take part in it," said Tharoor.
"Everything takes time and we in India should support the creation
of a global parliamentary assembly at the UN," Tharoor added.
The preface to the Indian edition of the book states that
promoting a UN Parliamentary Assembly would "fit well into India's
support of democracy and by doing so India could catch the world's
imagination as it did when it strongly advocated for the end of
colonialism and apartheid."
In the book, Falk and Strauss argue that a number of twenty to
thirty countries that are geographically, culturally and
economically diverse could initiate a project to create a global
parliament.
The book is a compilation of articles and essays by Falk and
Strauss that appeared in journals such as Foreign Affairs and
newspapers like The International Herald Tribune or The Times of
India between 1997 and 2010.
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