Joint UN-IPU Parliamentary Hearing

on Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding

PM Meeting

Expanding Partnership between United Nations and inter-parliamentary union upheld,

as two-day joint hearing on conflict prevention and peacebuilding concludes

Describing groundbreaking strides in the area of cooperation between the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), participants in the joint hearings wrapped up a two-day session this afternoon, with speakers reaffirming the need to further strengthen the deepening partnership between the world body and the watchdog parliamentary organization.

Focusing on the theme of “Conflict prevention and peacebuilding: reinforcing the key role of the United Nations”, participants during the two-day event discussed such issues as conflict prevention, the recently established United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, good governance and the fight against corruption.  This afternoon’s interactive discussion entitled, “Enhancing the Parliamentary Dimension of the United Nations”, was introduced by panellists Pier Ferdinando Casini, the IPU President and Theo Ben-Gurirab, the President of Namibia’s National Assembly and former United Nations General Assembly President.

The Parliamentary Hearing -- held each year during the General Assembly’s fall session -- this year, in the wake of a General Assembly resolution in October on cooperation between the IPU and the Assembly, was designed as a joint initiative to mobilize the world’s parliamentary community around issues of major concern on the global agenda.  It sought to allow for an exchange of views between United Nations officials, diplomats, scholars and leading academics.

An international organization, grouping sovereign national parliaments, the Inter-Parliamentary Union serves as the focal point for worldwide parliamentary dialogue, as well as promoting peace, cooperation and representative democracy.

Opening this afternoon’s discussion, IPU’s President reviewed interaction over the years between parliaments and the United Nations, noting that the first parliamentary hearing at the United Nations had taken place some 20 years ago.  Since the first parliamentary meeting in the General Assembly Hall in 1995, a huge amount of ground had been covered, and cooperation between the IPU and the United Nations had increased both qualitatively and quantitatively.

The need to define the parliamentary dimension of the United Nations must be firmly rooted in the activities parliamentarians carried back home, he said.  Defining the parliamentary dimension of the United Nations must also involve scrutinizing the Organization’s activities and providing input into its deliberations.  Only in the last 10 years had the IPU taken on a proactive role in helping to give structure to parliamentary interaction with the United Nations.  Now, it was the most valuable tool in the area of international cooperation, just as the United Nations was a tool to facilitate cooperation between governments.  The IPU also stimulated thinking, helped to organize parliamentary input into the United Nations work and helped to ensure that parliaments knew what was happening at the world body.  The IPU was not a substitute for action by parliaments, but a complement.

He stressed that a particular source of concern was the gap between what happened at the national level and what happened at the global level, namely the “international democracy deficit”.  Accountability was at the heart of the concept of the parliamentary dimension.  Parliamentary oversight functions must be adopted to ensure accountability.  The IPU faced its own challenges as it sought to modernize its work and provide effective tools with which to interact with the United Nations, and much work remained to be done to build a more strategic relationship with the United Nations.

Theo-Ben Gurirab, President of Namibia’s National Assembly and former General Assembly President, agreed that in the past six years, significant progress had been engineered by the IPU and the United Nations, including the granting of observer status to the IPU within the United Nations system and the current innovation of public hearings, in keeping with a true parliamentary oversight and accountability tradition.  Now, 117 years and counting, the worldwide parliamentary body was experiencing a reinvigorating rebirth of its vital mission, which was now embracing a new and determined campaign of human development, human security and prosperous work for all.

Members of parliament shared a collective calling and responsibility to place on the front burner the concerns of women, children, elderly and people with disabilities, he said.  “This is our forte as MPs”, he added.  He also pointed to often neglected issues in the public debate, such as decolonization, self-determination, the war on terror, nuclear non-proliferation, insistence by some on oil and gas security to the detriment of others mostly pre-occupied with depressing issues of poverty, hunger, financing for development and trade rules.  Those were divisive and emotive issues that often assumed ideological shades and religious intolerance.  “We are all agreed, I believe, on the precious dictum, namely that prevention is a wise policy in preserving human life and democracy, rather than reliance on belated reaction”, he said.

In reality, however, multilateralism was not built on a linear trajectory of an eternal consensus, but on preferences of national interests, he said.  That was what the United Nations Charter sought to mitigate.  Without responsibility towards the people, parliamentarians lost all legitimacy and became disconnected from the people they claimed to represent.  The IPU had the particular responsibility towards its constituents, namely to ensure accountability and transparency.  In search of optimizing mutual benefits for the United Nations and the parliamentary watchdog, the IPU should forever be free from any blame of seemingly competing with the United Nations or duplicating its work.

In closing, he asked the IPU to encourage the incoming leaders of the United States’ Congress to return, as soon as possible, to the IPU fold.  Change created favourable opportunities for creative thinking and harmonization of common interest, he offered.

In the ensuing discussion, a parliamentary representative from Chile highlighted the great challenges confronting multilateralism, which would require strong alliances and synergies to overcome.  Multilateralists must establish alliances with parliaments, which provided the legislative sanction for any universal document to become a binding instrument.  Parliamentarians were particularly receptive to the feelings of the people and the needs of the marginalized.  In turn, support of parliaments was needed to successfully implement the Millennium Development Goals.

With 2006 a turning point in the relationship between the IPU and the United Nations, the parliamentary representative from France said the Secretary-General’s report before the Hearing demonstrated close cooperation between the two institutions.  While the scope of that cooperation was impressive, a great deal remained to be done.  In particular, he stressed the need to reach a better recognition of parliaments as institutions.  The creation of good governance and the rule of law required democratic parliaments.  Specifically, the establishment of the Democracy and Peacebuilding Funds were new tools that would allow for improved assistance.  Consensus was also needed to set up a political organ for dialogue between the IPU and the United Nations.

Noting that the IPU had existed well before the League of Nations and the United Nations, the speaker from Mexico also stressed the need to strengthen the parliamentary dimension of the United Nations, supporting a two way process between the parliamentary organization and the United Nations to do that.  The IPU had been discussing the issue of United Nations reform as well as its own reform.  The United Nations and the IPU were both associations; one of States and the other of parliaments.  The reform process, which both universal organizations were undergoing, could bring them closer together, he said.

Pointing to the need for effective and accountable leadership, the speaker from Kenya stressed the need for parliaments to be independent and supreme in carrying out their oversight functions.  A parliament that was controlled by the executive was completely compromised and could not deliver.  The United Nations, therefore, should continue to pursue the promotion of true democracy, in order to achieve its objectives of peace and the elimination of corruption.

Given that cooperation and interaction between the IPU and the United Nations had intensified, the parliamentary representative from Ireland said a valuable two-way communication process between the world body and parliaments had thrived and had played an important part in the United Nations reform process.  Bringing the Organization closer to parliaments, the United Nations must come out and meet the parliamentary committees of the various parliaments.  There was no need to take sides politically, as some were concerned.

Summarizing the discussion, Mr. Casini highlighted the idea of creating a commission to focus on relations between the IPU and the United Nations.  Such a commission would help parliamentarians become specialists in the United Nations work.  During the discussion, participants had provided a clear idea of what the IPU would be working on in the coming years.  Agreeing with the need for the United States to return to the IPU, he asked participants to encourage the United States Congress in that regard.

Also participating in the discussion were parliamentary representatives from Turkey and Cote d’Ivoire, as well as a speaker from the Council of Europe.

As the meeting concluded, Pier Ferdinando Casini, IPU President; Elisabeth Rehn, Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina; Rosario Green Macias, Senator from Mexico, and IPU Secretary-General Anders Johnsson presented oral reports on the proceedings of the two-day Parliamentary Hearing.

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For information media • not an official record