1. Introduction
A recent proposal advocating the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly has revived the old academic debate of creating a world parliament to give unmediated voice to the citizens of the world in international institutions. Initially put forward by the World Federalist Movement in 1992,Footnote 1 but endorsed by the European Parliament since 1993,Footnote 2 the proposal calls for implementing cosmopolitan ideals about democracy in international institutions. In this respect, it is reminiscent of Thomas Franckʼs suggestion of creating a second chamber of the UN General Assembly as a means to address, and redress, the ‘both manifestly unfair and, ultimately, destructive’ characteristic of the current global discourse, ‘where voice and vote are reserved exclusively for governments’.Footnote 3 Compared to the previous ones, the novelty of the proposal lies in the suggestion to create a new principal organ of the UN aimed at complementing the work of the UN General Assembly. However, scholars have largely overlooked the theoretical and practical implications of the proposal. This article fills the gap in the academic literature.
The central argument put forward for the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly is two-pronged. On the one hand, it questions the very notion of state sovereignty. By creating a civil society chamber in a universal organization, it aims at creating an alternative source of legitimation of the international legal system, the General Assembly being mainly perceived as ‘a generally ineffectual talk shop’.Footnote 4 On the other hand, it advocates the creation of a parliamentary assembly with the power of adopting binding laws.Footnote 5 In doing so, it transcends the mandate of the UN, as envisioned by its founders.Footnote 6 The legal significance of the proposal thus emerges in at least two respects.
The first one is theoretical. By reigniting the academic debate on the right to democratic governance and political participation in international law, it challenges some of the positivist cardinal assumptions about the legal nature of the type of international co-operation delivered by the UN, including through the General Assembly.Footnote 7 Specifically, the conceptual premise of the proposal is that, despite the fact that the opening words of the UN Charter read ‘[w]e the peoples’, ‘[o]ne will seek in vain for any clause in the document that specifies a means by which ordinary peoples can play a role in the organizationʼs deliberations and decision making’.Footnote 8
Viewed from this angle, the international community represented at the UN turns out to be a community of peoples rather than states. Hence, by pointing to an allegedly profound democratic deficit at the UN, proponents of a UN Parliamentary Assembly have repeatedly called for a radical institutional change: ‘UN decisions have impacted the lives of virtually the whole of humanity. Thus, a powerful case can be made for greater citizen input into the UN decision-making process.’Footnote 9 However, the proposal lacks coherence, since the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly would be incompatible with, and therefore detrimental to, the proper functioning of some of the current institutional arrangements under the UN Charter.
The second one is pragmatic. Moving from the premise that the system of international co-operation embodied by the UN is not fully or sufficiently democratic,Footnote 10 it advocates the creation of a new system of international co-operation.Footnote 11 The latter requires a reform of the UN system in the direction of world government.Footnote 12 Establishing a UN Parliamentary Assembly as a new principal organ of the UN is one step in that direction. While focusing on aspects related to composition and functions of the proposed UN Parliamentary Assembly, the consequences related to the implementation of the proposal have been underestimated. This is largely due to the unwillingness of states and international institutions alike to move beyond the logic of intergovernmental co-operation the proposal seeks to overcome. In this regard, the proposal lacks coherence as it advocates the creation of a peoples’ chamber endowed with the power of passing laws aimed at binding states and, through them, influencing international institutions.
Section 2 outlines the main features of the proposal to establish a UN Parliamentary Assembly while Section 3 examines the level of support to the proposal offered by the EU. Section 4 critically assesses the proposal. Sub-section 4.1 addresses the issue of compatibility of the proposal with the relevant provisions of the UN Charter. In particular, it examines the extent to which the proposed parliamentary assembly would complement the work of the UN principal organs. Sub-section 4.2 evaluates the type of democratic entitlement the creation of the UN Parliamentary Assembly would bring to the international community. Section 5 assesses the feasibility of transplanting a parliamentarian model inspired by the European Parliamentʼs experience in the UN. Section 6 concludes. The research methodology adopted consists of normative analysis grounded on archival and doctrinal research. The article evaluates the proposal to establish a UN Parliamentary Assembly primarily through the lens of UN law.
2. The proposal in outline
A Campaign for the Creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly was officially launched in 2007.Footnote 13 Actively supported by a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as Democracy Without Borders and the World Federalist Movement,Footnote 14 the Campaign has held five international meetings and quickly gained widespread support.Footnote 15 Among its individual supporters feature nine Nobel laureates, including the Dalai Lama, as well as 22 current and former Heads of State or Government, 654 members of parliament and 897 former ones. Institutional support comes chiefly from the EU, including 54 current and former Members of the European Parliament.Footnote 16
The stated aim of the Campaign is to address the democratic deficit in global governance,Footnote 17 especially at the UN, the latter being regarded as ‘the essential core institution for international cooperation and a more viable framework for effective international governance’.Footnote 18 As the supporters of the Campaign point out, the bodies of international organizations are composed exclusively of officials appointed by governments.Footnote 19 In turn, international organizations are not directly accountable to the citizens of the world for their actions or omissions. In order to democratize global governance, the Campaign advocates the creation of avenues for democratic representation of the worldʼs citizens at the UN with a view to enabling them to be directly involved in the agenda-setting and decision-making process.Footnote 20
The logical precondition for enabling popular representation through democratically elected representatives at the UN is to establish a parliamentary assembly. To that end, the approach advocated by the Campaignʼs supporters is a pragmatic and gradual one aimed at achieving the eventual long-term goal of a world parliament.Footnote 21 The envisioned strategy to attain this goal comprises three stages of development.
The first stage consists of the creation of a consultative body,Footnote 22 either as a subsidiary body of the UN General AssemblyFootnote 23 or through the conclusion of a multilateral treaty by an intergovernmental conference, followed by a separate co-operation agreement with the UN specifying the functions and powers of the UN Parliamentary Assembly.Footnote 24 None of the alternatives would require an amendment of the UN Charter.Footnote 25 In this initial stage, the functions of the UN Parliamentary Assembly would be limited to providing support for the work of the General Assemblyʼs committeesFootnote 26 and improving communication between the UN, the national parliaments, and the world public mainly by way of reporting to the General Assembly.Footnote 27 In terms of composition, as representatives of the world citizens, delegates would be initially chosen by their governments from the members of their respective national parliaments. Alternatively, states could allow for direct popular elections from the beginning.Footnote 28
The second stage is the progressive consolidation of the UN Parliamentary Assembly into a democratic institution. Aimed at making the voice of governments and citizens equally heard at the UN,Footnote 29 the Parliamentary Assembly will progressively have all the representatives directly elected by the worldʼs citizens. In terms of functions, it would not replace the existing bodies of the UN, but rather complement them.Footnote 30 For example, it would have co-decision powers with the General Assembly with regard to the UN budgetFootnote 31 and the appointment of the UN Secretary-General as well the right to submit draft resolutions to the General Assembly and the ECOSOC for consideration.Footnote 32 Such an expansion of the UN Parliamentary Assemblyʼs competence would arguably require a formal amendment of the UN Charter.
The third stage envisions the transformation of the UN Parliamentary Assembly into a primary organ of the UN, like the General Assembly or the Security Council, composed only of democratically elected representatives and able to pass ‘universally binding regulations’.Footnote 33 Bummel writes that delegates at the Parliamentary Assembly would ‘vote individually according to their personal judgment and [be] only bound by their conscience’ rather than national interests.Footnote 34 Subject to UN Charter amendment, the completion of this final stage would effectively fulfil the campaigners’ long-term goal of creating a world parliament.Footnote 35
The supporters of the Campaign argue that, by acting as an independent watchdog in the UN system, the UN Parliamentary Assembly ‘for the first time would give popularly elected representatives a formal role in global affairs’,Footnote 36 thus making the UN accountable to the worldʼs citizens.Footnote 37 While advocating a reform of the present system of international institutions and global governance,Footnote 38 it would also act as ‘a democratic reflection of the diversity of world public opinion’.Footnote 39 The experience of the European Parliament is advocated as a model for guiding the creation of the UN Parliamentary Assembly. Moreover, the European Parliament itself appears to be backing the Campaignʼs proposal.
3. Endorsement by the European Union
On 3 November 1993, the European Parliamentʼs Committee on Foreign Affairs and Security unanimously adopted a motion for a resolution on the problem of reforming the UN.Footnote 40 Aimed at improving the goals and the structure of the UN,Footnote 41 the Committeeʼs Report envisioned ‘the possibility of setting up within the UN a Parliamentary Consultative Assembly to enable the elected representatives of peoples to participate more fully in the work of UN bodies’.Footnote 42 It also pointed out that, in terms of nature and power, the UN General Assembly is, to a certain extent, comparable to the European Parliament.Footnote 43 However, while advocating a closer relationship of the General Assembly with the peoples of the world through direct elections,Footnote 44 the Committee never discussed the functions the reformed General Assembly would serve. Nor did it elicit further discussion.
For over a decade, the proposal to establish a parliamentary assembly at the UN did not feature in the European Parliamentʼs annual debate on the role of the EU in the UN and the latterʼs needs for reform. It reappeared in 2005 in a motion for a resolution on the reform of the UN, this time calling for the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly within the UN system.Footnote 45 The terminological change does not appear to be coincidental.
Aimed at addressing the democratic deficit of the UN,Footnote 46 the 2005 resolution does not elaborate on the concrete features of the proposed UN Parliamentary Assembly. The information provided is scant, fragmentary, and rather superficial. The relevant passage from the text of the adopted resolution reads:
[The European Parliament] Calls for the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) within the UN system, which would increase the democratic profile and internal democratic process of the organisation and allow world civil society to be directly associated in the decision-making process; [The European Parliament] states that the Parliamentary Assembly should be vested with genuine rights of information, participation and control, and should be able to adopt recommendations directed at the UN General Assembly.Footnote 47
The wording of the resolution is immediately reminiscent of the Campaignʼs proposal to establish a UN Parliamentary Assembly.Footnote 48 Indeed, the discussion following the adoption of the resolution features statements made by Members of the European Parliament who also happen to be public supporters of the Campaign for a UN Parliamentary Assembly.Footnote 49 Other Members of the European Parliament have endorsed the idea of creating a parliamentary assembly without referring to any function or power of the advocated institution.Footnote 50 The limited number of statements, as well as the absence of a dedicated debate on the creation of a parliamentary assembly at the UN, suggests a weak interest on part of the European Parliament to mobilize time and resources to implement the proposal.
A similar scenario has accompanied the adoption in 2011 of a recommendation of the European Parliament to the Council on the 66th session of the UN General Assembly, where the only two references to the UN Parliamentary Assembly have been introduced through amendments requested by some of the Campaignʼs supporters. Specifically, the first amendmentFootnote 51 brings to the fore the need ‘to foster a debate … on the topic of establishing a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA)’.Footnote 52 The second amendmentFootnote 53 recommends the Council:
to advocate the establishment of a UNPA within the UN system in order to increase the democratic nature, the democratic accountability and the transparency of global governance and to allow for greater public participation in the activities of the UN, acknowledging that a UNPA would be complementary to existing bodies, including the Inter-Parliamentary Union.Footnote 54
While adopted by 45 votes to five,Footnote 55 the debates following the adoption of the recommendation suggest that, for the Members of the European Parliament not directly involved in the Campaign, the creation of a UN parliamentary assembly mainly represents a proposal closer to an aspirational goal than a specific proposition.Footnote 56 Similarly, answering a written question by a Member of the European Parliament supportive of the Campaign, the Council stated that regarding the proposal to create a UN Parliamentary Assembly, ‘the Council does not have a position on this matter’,Footnote 57 thus confirming the weak interest on the part of EU institutions to support the proposal.
The active role of the campaigners in sparking the interest of the European Parliament in backing their proposal becomes pronounced, without explicitly stating it, in the passage of the 2011 recommendation envisioning a role for the UN Parliamentary Assembly complementary to that of other international institutions, including the Inter-Parliamentary Union.Footnote 58 The remark as such is not particularly striking or innovative. It becomes significant when read in light of the Campaignʼs activities, since the Inter-Parliamentary Union initially featured as a possible host institution for the establishment of the UN Parliamentary Assembly.Footnote 59 After refusal by the Inter-Parliamentary Union to support the creation and the activities of the UN Parliamentary Assembly on the ground that they are ‘incompatible with the strategy for parliamentary interaction with the United Nations’,Footnote 60 the Campaignʼs steering committee decided to portray the relationship between the UN Parliamentary Assembly and the Inter-Parliamentary Union as complementary, due to the inability and unwillingness of the latter to address the problem of the democratic deficit at the United Nations.Footnote 61
The considerations above suggest that the interest of the European Parliament in the proposal to create a parliamentary assembly within the UN is largely a reflection of the personal views of those Members of the European Parliament involved in the Campaign for the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly. The assumption appears to find confirmation in the absence of any reference to the UN Parliamentary Assembly in the European Parliamentʼs recommendation to the Council on the 67th Session of the UN General Assembly (2012),Footnote 62 despite amendments tabled by two Members of the European Parliament who are also Campaign supporters.Footnote 63 Likewise, the recommendation to the Council on the 68th Session of the UN General Assembly (2013)Footnote 64 does not refer to the UN Parliamentary Assembly, despite tabled amendments by Members of the European Parliament.Footnote 65 A similar amendment was also unsuccessfully introduced in the Committee on Foreign Affairs Report on the implementation of the Common Security and Defence Policy (2016).Footnote 66
The recommendation to the Council on the 72nd session of the UN General Assembly (2017) contains a statement identical to the one in the 2011 recommendation,Footnote 67 thus denoting lack of progress in the implementation of the proposal. An unsuccessful amendment to the text tabled by Members of the European Parliament who are also Campaign supportersFootnote 68 shows at the same time the activism of individual Members of the European Parliament and the reluctance of the European Parliament itself to take the proposal forward. Moreover, asked whether institutional support for the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly figured in the EUʼs external policy, Vice-President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini replied that ‘[t]he EU has no formal position as regards the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly’.Footnote 69 It is therefore not surprising that the text of the 2018 recommendation to the Council on the 73rd Session of the UN General Assembly simply reiterates the need to create a UN Parliamentary Assembly in the UN system with a view to democratizing global governance and facilitating citizens’ direct participation in UN activities.Footnote 70 It is also noteworthy that the reference to the UN Parliamentary Assembly appears only after a Member of the European Parliament supportive of the Campaign for the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly successfully introduced an amendment to the original text of the recommendation.Footnote 71
Despite the aspirational nature of the content of the 2018 and previous recommendations, it is difficult to grasp what the real intention of the European Parliament is in endorsing the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly. So far, the proposal has not been followed by any real discussion about the nature, role and functions of the suggested UN Parliamentary Assembly. However, it appears that over time the debate, started in 1993 about the creation of a parliamentary assembly at the UN, has evolved into seeking support to establish the specific model of UN Parliamentary Assembly advocated by the Campaign supporters. The fact that the Member of the European Parliament who has taken the lead to sponsor the 2018 European Parliamentʼs recommendation is also one of the co-chairs of the Campaignʼs steering committee and co-author with the Campaignʼs global co-ordinator of a monograph on the UN Parliamentary Assembly further suggests that, weakly but steadily, the EU is effectively endorsing the proposal developed by the Campaign.Footnote 72
The implication of this practical development is not negligible, since the European Parliament in principle appears to be in favour of establishing a consultative assembly whereas the long-term goal of the Campaign for the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly is to turn the consultative assembly into a world parliament with full legislative powers. Discussing the creation of a parliamentary assembly is not the same as endorsing the establishment of a world parliament, which the European Parliament never openly discussed or endorsed. Indeed, the European Parliament has never presented itself as a model for the gradual development of the UN Parliamentary Assembly, which is an isolated view held by the Campaign supporters.Footnote 73 It follows from the preceding that the potential legal implications of the endorsement are worth exploring, should the proposal for the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly pick up momentum.
4. Critical assessment of the proposal
A cursory view of the UN General Assemblyʼs practice shows that the resolutions adopted since 1946 have covered a vast array of issues ranging from fairness in economic relations to the protection of human rights within and beyond national boundaries.Footnote 74 Some resolutions have been more persuasive than others,Footnote 75 but virtually all of them have initiated a process of dialogue and recommendation among states accompanied by different levels of confrontation and support.Footnote 76 In light of this, it is not immediately clear what a UN Parliamentary Assembly would add to the work of the General Assembly. Coverage in terms of the subject matter of resolutions does not appear a convincing reason. Likewise, concerns about the efficiency of the General Assembly have been raised and are currently being dealt with by the General Assembly itself as part of its process of revitalization.Footnote 77 A UN Parliamentary Assembly would arguably add little to the ongoing efforts. A third and more plausible possibility is that, by working side by side with the General Assembly, the UN Parliamentary Assembly would increase the legitimacy of the UN system as a whole.
Certainly, at present the UN General Assembly is only representative of the UN member states, as it lacks a mechanism aimed at ensuring participation of elected parliamentarians.Footnote 78 Perceiving this as a manifestation of the more general undemocratic character of contemporary international organization,Footnote 79 proponents of the UN Parliamentary Assembly argue that ‘[t]his flaw is a main source of the democratic deficit of global governance. The primary means to correct this deficiency is the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly’.Footnote 80
From this perspective, a UN Parliamentary Assembly endowed with the power to pass binding laws would complement the existent General Assembly, thus turning the UN into an instrument of world governance. The latter refers to the capability of the UN – through the General Assembly and the Parliamentary Assembly – to take decisions of common concern of the international community in a way that is fairly representative of the people of the world.Footnote 81 Specifically, since members of the UN Parliamentary Assembly would not be accountable to states but directly to the citizens of the world,Footnote 82 the UN Parliamentary Assembly ‘would not merely be a new voice, [but] a fundamentally different kind of voice’.Footnote 83 Regarding this, Heinrich writes that:
Where the voices in the General Assembly today are the voices of the institutions of national governments speaking through diplomats, the voice of a UN parliamentarian would be the voice of a citizen speaking for citizens … a parliamentarian would be able to take positions of individual conscience, ultimately accountable only to constituents.Footnote 84
On point of law, denouncing the democratic deficit of the General Assembly raises two different, but intimately connected, sets of problems – namely, the coherence of the proposal to create a UN Parliamentary Assembly with the UN Charter provisions and what type of democratic entitlement it would bring to the international community. The following sub-sections discuss, in turn, each set of problems.
4.1 Assessing the relationship between the proposal and UN law
Often perceived as an exercise in utopianism,Footnote 85 the idea of creating a world parliament is not new.Footnote 86 In the last two decades alone, proposals for the creation of a peoples’ chamber in international institutions have appeared in a stream of academic writings.Footnote 87 Albeit indirectly, the proposal for the establishment of a UN Parliamentary Assembly is informed by selected works of scholars, who also happen to be supporters of the Campaign.Footnote 88 Such writings complement the vision of the Campaignʼs committee, which remains largely seminal in relation to the long-term goal of creating a world parliament.
For instance, the Campaign supporters argue that once established and functioning, the UN Parliamentary Assembly should ideally be converted into a UN primary body endowed with limited legislative powers of its own.Footnote 89 However, the proposal, like previous ones,Footnote 90 is not entirely clear on this point. For example, Schwartzberg writes that:
It would also be desirable to provide for a [UN Parliament Assemblyʼs] check against dubious decisions in the Security Council, the General Assembly and other entities within the UN system. This would, in effect, establish, in extreme situations, the principle of a non-binding, though politically potent, peopleʼs veto.Footnote 91
A possible counterargument to such suggestions is that endowing the UN Parliamentary Assembly with recommendatory powers would not grant any veto power to it, since a recommendation would be tantamount to a simple manifestation of dissent. However, from a theoretical perspective, the proposal is interesting as it significantly departs from previous ones. Franck, for example, envisioned the possibility of transforming the General Assembly into a two-chamber forum with only powers of discussion and recommendation. Within this framework, resolutions on important matters would be subject to a two-thirds, rather than simple, majority without implying any significant transfer of power from the governments to the peopleʼs representatives.Footnote 92
Other supporters of the Campaign suggest that, subject to a four-fifth majority, a vote of the UN Parliamentary Assembly could ‘nullify a decision of the Security Council’.Footnote 93 This suggestion is more problematic. In the absence of a definition of international peace and security in the UN Charter and in the light of the discretionary powers of the Security Council bestowed on it by the UN Charter itself,Footnote 94 it is difficult to assess the legitimacy of Security Council action without challenging the doctrine of implied powers, which entails that international organizations can exercise only those powers attributed to them.Footnote 95
With regard to the permanent organs of international organizations, some scholars argue that their implied powers are limited by the powers of other organs.Footnote 96 From this perspective, decisions of the UN Parliamentary Assembly taken by a four-fifth majority could limit the scope of those of the Security Council and possibly nullify them, subject to a previous amendment of the UN Charter conferring such powers to the UN Parliamentary Assembly. A counterargument is that the same implied powers would apply to the Security Council, whose decisions could in practice restrict the scope of application of the decisions by qualified majority of the UN Parliamentary Assembly.
Other scholars point out that, in line with the Advisory Opinion of the Permanent Court of International Justice in the Greco-Turkish Agreement,Footnote 97 ‘the competence of each organ to determine the scope of its respective powers is self-referential and self-judging, measured only against the aims it pursues’.Footnote 98 From this perspective, it is difficult to identify the scope and limits of the implied powers of the Security Council and assess the legitimacy of its action in the abstract. As things stand, the only possible limit to Security Council action is the one set forth in Article 24, paragraph 2, of the UN Charter – namely, the purposes and principles of the UN, which are themselves aspirational goals rather than objective criteria.Footnote 99 In this regard, it is noteworthy that a proposal to give the General Assembly the right to review Security Council resolutions was discussed and rejected at the San Francisco Conference by the framers of the UN Charter.Footnote 100 This further confirms that introducing a power of the UN Parliamentary Assembly to strike down Security Council resolutions would necessarily require a formal amendment of the UN Charter. Absent a Charter amendment, the provisions on collective security currently in place, and in particular Article 24 of the UN Charter, would prevail over the decisions of the UN Parliamentary Assembly.
Even if the UN Charter was formally amended, introducing the relevant provisions bestowing legislative powers on the UN Parliamentary Assembly would probably require a contextual amendment of Article 24, paragraph 1, of the UN Charter in order to prevail over both the discretional and the implied powers of the Security Council. Without amending such provision, the Security Council would formally remain the organ of the UN endowed with primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security. Thus, whether challenging the legality of its resolutions by the UN Parliamentary Assembly would be in theory possible, striking down a resolution would essentially prevent the Security Council from performing its functions – that is to say, its Charter mandate – to the detriment of the entire UN system.
In this regard, it is noteworthy that in the Certain Expenses advisory opinion of 1962, the ICJ held that ‘it cannot be said that the Charter has left the Security Council impotent in the face of an emergency situation when agreements under article 43 have not been concluded’, effectively legitimizing the practice of peacekeeping operations.Footnote 101 This suggests that having a fully operative Security Council is a precondition for the correct functioning of the UN as a whole, as envisioned by the framers of the UN Charter. Conversely, allowing the UN Parliamentary Assembly to strike down Security Council resolutions, especially those authorizing the use of military force, would severely undermine both the functionality and the credibility of the Security Council as an institution of collective security.
Even if Article 24 of the UN Charter was contextually amended, the proposal does not specify the criteria according to which the UN Parliamentary Assembly could strike down Security Council resolutions. One criterion could be the violation of international law. However, it is widely accepted that the Security Council is not bound by international law, possibly with the exception of jus cogens,Footnote 102 in the sense that it is not required to assess the legal position of the parties before taking a decision.Footnote 103 According to Article 39 of the UN Charter, the determination of whether a dispute amounts to a threat to or breach of international peace and security, or an act of aggression rests on the Security Council alone. Moreover, at the San Francisco conference, proposals aimed at requiring compliance of Chapter VII resolutions to general international law were rejected.Footnote 104 Likewise, in the Lockerbie cases, the ICJ rejected Libyaʼs claim that a Security Council resolution conflicting with the provisions of a treaty to which the parties to the dispute are bound is invalid.Footnote 105 In truth, in the Namibia advisory opinion, Judge de Castro recognized the possibility of questioning the validity of an irrational resolution of the Security Council.Footnote 106 However, no such instance has ever been invoked. It thus seems unlikely that the UN Parliamentary Assembly would be able to challenge the validity of a resolution, which is by definition grounded on a determination of the Security Council made under Article 39 of the UN Charter.
However, it may be said that international law indirectly constrains the decisions of the Security Council. For instance, since Kadi and Al Barakaat (2008), the European Court of Justice has ruled that EU regulations implementing Security Council sanctions must comply with the human rights guaranteed under EU law.Footnote 107 Similarly, since the Bosphorus case (2005),Footnote 108 the European Court of Human Rights has consistently interpreted the implementation of Security Council resolutions by states in light of the European Convention on Human Rights.Footnote 109 Such jurisprudential developments suggest that, instead of questioning the legality of Security Council resolutions per se, compliance with international law is in practice achieved by sanctioning the national acts implementing the resolutions. This, in turn, casts doubt about the desirability of endowing the UN Parliamentary Assembly with the power to nullify resolutions of the Security Council.
Another possible criterion for guiding the decision of the UN Parliamentary Assembly to strike down Security Council resolutions could be a violation of decisions of the UN Parliamentary Assembly itself.Footnote 110 In the absence of a concrete example, it is difficult to speculate on their content. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that they would be of at least two types. As Heinrich suggests, decisions adopted with a qualified majority by both the UN General Assembly and the UN Parliamentary Assembly could be accorded higher status than those adopted by a simple majority.Footnote 111 Arguably, resolutions adopted by simple majority would be recommendatory while those adopted by qualified majority would be binding,Footnote 112 thus forming a solid benchmark for assessing the legality of Security Council resolutions. However, the problem with the idea of binding resolutions is that the General Assembly has no power to adopt binding resolutions.Footnote 113 Under the doctrine of implied powers, it cannot exercise powers greater than those conferred to it. Amending the UN Charter to enlarge the scope of its legislative powers would be an option. Yet, this would affect the entire balance of power among the principal organs of the United Nations, fundamentally changing the nature of international co-operation envisioned by the UN Charter.
Last but not least, allowing the UN Parliamentary Assembly to strike down Security Council resolutions (under whichever hypothetical ground) would effectively endow it with judicial powers of review. As things stand, not even Article 92 of the UN Charter confers such powers to the ICJ, which is the judicial organ of the United Nations. The ICJ is only entitled to decide on the legal consequences arising from decisions of the UN political organs, including Security Council resolutions, when they have a bearing on a case before it.Footnote 114 This is part of the judicial functions of the ICJ and does not amount to a separate power of judicial review.Footnote 115 In any case, as recognized in Northern Cameroons, the judgments of the ICJ do not have binding force on the UN political organs.Footnote 116 Conversely, a power to strike down Security Council resolutions would turn the UN Parliamentary Assembly into a judicial organ of the UN acting outside the sphere of dispute settlement. Such a power, if created, would profoundly alter the current balance of power among the primary organs of the UN, as envisioned in the UN Charter.
The considerations above suggest that the proposal to establish a UN Parliamentary Assembly, as it stands, lacks coherence in terms of supplementing the institutional architecture of the United Nations. Another sign that points to a lack of coherence in the proposal relates to the composition of the UN Parliamentary Assembly in its second stage of life. Supporters of the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly envision it as composed exclusively of ‘reasonably functional democrac[ies]’,Footnote 117 effectively implying a process of exclusion of members initially admitted to the UN Parliamentary Assembly which do not meet the new criterion. However, the proposal is not entirely coherent on this point, as it starts by stating that UN members would not be required to accede the UN Parliamentary AssemblyFootnote 118 and concludes by recognizing that the accession process would ‘almost surely [gain] momentum’.Footnote 119 In any case, such a newly restructured UN Parliamentary Assembly would consist of circa 1,000 parliamentarians popularly elected and, as such, accountable to the people rather than governments.Footnote 120
As a matter of UN law, reference to such a selective membership of the UN Parliamentary Assembly is problematic, since the UN member states have already been qualified as peace-loving countries and, on the basis of that assessment, admitted to membership by joint decision of the General Assembly and the Security Council.Footnote 121 To grant admission to the UN Parliamentary Assembly on the basis of a democratic requirement would amount to a de facto amendment of Article 4 of the UN Charter.Footnote 122 Likewise, the decision on the admission to the UN Parliamentary Assembly would apply to members of the United Nations which have already been judged as able and willing to carry out the UN Charter obligations.Footnote 123 A similar matter arose in 1946 when five countries – namely, Albania, Mongolia, Transjordan, Ireland, and Portugal – applied for membership at the United Nations only to see their application vetoed in the Security Council by the Soviet Union, the reason being their conduct during the Second World War.Footnote 124 Asked whether the application for admission was dependent on considerations not included in the text of Article 4 of the UN Charter, the ICJ ruled that the enumeration of conditions for membership in Article 4 was exhaustive.Footnote 125 In the light of the ICJ pronouncement, it is difficult to harmonize the proposalʼs criterion for admission to the UN Parliamentary Assembly with the established practice of the UN.
Last but not least, Heinrich writes that once endowed with the power to legislate, the UN Parliamentary Assembly would effectively embody the ideal of democratic representation of the worldʼs population in an international institution.Footnote 126 Accordingly, the apportionment of seats should transcend national boundaries through the creation of electoral constituencies not corresponding to states’ international borders.Footnote 127 In this respect, the proposal for the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly aligns itself to Straussʼs suggestion that ‘for certain purposes’, a world parliamentary assembly should ‘transcend states to rest global authority upon the consent of the governed. This well-established democratic principle would root global law in the same basis of authority as domestic democratic law’.Footnote 128 Similarly, the Campaign supporters claim that democratically elected parliamentarians ‘would have an immediate credibility’, since they would be ‘understood to be going to the UN as representatives of citizens rather than as representatives of governments-as-institutions’.Footnote 129
However, the claims above run counter the historical roots of the UN Charter. As Haviland points out in relation to the composition of the General Assembly, at the San Francisco Conference the criterion regarding ‘democratic institutions’ was excluded, as it would have implied ‘an undue interference with internal arrangements’.Footnote 130 In the absence of a serious discussion about the functions and powers of the envisioned world parliament, it is difficult to envisage the UN Parliamentary Assembly working within the current framework of the UN Charter provisions. Moreover, in the absence of global political parties, it is difficult to appreciate how representatives of the global civil society would organize themselves at the UN Parliamentary Assembly. More generally, envisioning how the right to political participation in international settings such as the proposed UN Parliamentary Assembly would play out in practice is conceptually challenging.Footnote 131
The rationale behind the proposal for the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly is that representation in a peopleʼs assembly should be by direct elections.Footnote 132 Thus, assuming that the UN decision-making process through majority voting would derive its legitimacy from the direct participation of world citizens gathered in the UN Parliamentary Assembly,Footnote 133 the Campaign supporters call for the adoption of the degressive proportionality model adopted by the EU to decide the composition of the European Parliament,Footnote 134 accompanied by the creation of an Electoral Commission to supervise the election process.Footnote 135 However, this is problematic. While adopting the principle of degressive proportionality would provide a reasonably balanced representation of states in the UN Parliamentary Assembly based on their population size, conceptually the issue of representation of states is not the same as that of representation of their people. As Diamond writes, ‘civil society is distinct and autonomous not only from the state and society at large but also from a fourth arena of action, political society (meaning, in essence, the party system)’.Footnote 136 By definition, the representation of civil society in the UN Parliamentary Assembly would require the presence of global political parties. At the moment, they do not exist. Nor are they envisioned in the campaigners’ proposal.
Without a political mandate emerging from party contested elections,Footnote 137 the type of political participation advocated by the proponents of a UN Parliamentary Assembly resembles an exercise in formal proceduralism – that is to say, an end in itself. As a result, it produces what Rawls termed procedural justice, which is a form of input, rather than output, legitimacy.Footnote 138 At the same time, as Dahl points out in relation to the democratic character of international organizations in general, ‘What grounds do we have for thinking … that citizens in different countries engaged in international systems can ever attain the degree of influence and control over decisions that they now exercise within their own countries?’Footnote 139
Indeed, a corollary of apportioning seats through the principle of degressive proportionality is that, in the view of the proponents of the UN Parliamentary Assembly, adopting it would re-balance the voting power of large and small states, the latter being the dominant segment of todayʼs UN membership.Footnote 140 The suggestion has some merit, since it would replace the current voting system at the UN General Assembly,Footnote 141 which attributes one vote to each UN member state irrespective of considerations of size. However, it overlooks the fact that the concept of democratic participation in small states differs markedly from that of large countries. While it is widely recognized that small and micro states are generally more democratic than large states, political participation is mostly conducted though personalism rather than good governance practices.Footnote 142 Some small states do not even have political parties,Footnote 143 meaning that their propensity to democracy is attributable to local cultural and political factors.Footnote 144 Therefore, given their limited economic capacity, it is not to be taken for granted that small states will be willing to participate in a world peopleʼs assembly.
The considerations above warrant against assuming that the UN Parliamentary Assembly would derive its legitimacy and secure compliance with its decisions simply by virtue of allowing direct democratic participation. As Steiner points out, there are different and sometimes incompatible theories and practices which inform the right to political participation.Footnote 145 Yet, in Rothʼs words, ‘a test for democratic legitimacy that focused exclusively on electoral procedures would yield arbitrary results’.Footnote 146
4.2 A new type of democratic entitlement?
As noted in Section 2 above, the call for the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly builds on the idea that international institutions are not democratic.Footnote 147 Although contested,Footnote 148 this argument is in line with the position expressed by some scholars. For instance, since 1997 Falk and Strauss have advocated the creation of a world parliament that would transpose the domestic mechanisms of representative democracy into the global system.Footnote 149 ‘The international system … is structured so as to preclude the ideal of political equality. Citizens do not have a formally equal opportunity to select representatives to be the ultimate arbiters of policy in the international system.’Footnote 150
Within this theoretical framework, civil society is seen as representing ‘an independent international force’, the clearest example being the role NGOs played in the 1990s at large international conferences of states such as those on antipersonnel landmines.Footnote 151 Based on the prediction that civil society will continue to institutionalize its presence in global-decision making forums, the creation of a world parliament is seen as the cusp of a wider trend:Footnote 152 They write: ‘[The global assembly] could refute the claim that states are bound only by laws to which they give their consent … the assembly could encourage compliance with established international norms and standards, especially in human rights.’Footnote 153
Similarly, it seems that the ultimate goal of the UN Parliamentary Assembly is to force states to take action according to the global citizenryʼs will. In relation to this, Brauer and Bummel write that the UN Parliamentary Assembly ‘[could] become a political catalyst for further development of the international system and of international law’.Footnote 154 Peoples and states alike would obey the decisions of the UN Parliamentary Assembly by virtue of its perceived legitimacy, the latter stemming from its democratic composition. Falk and Strauss concur with this interpretation.Footnote 155
However, while apparently adding a layer of legitimacy to democratic participation in international decision-making, the proposal to create a UN Parliamentary Assembly turns out to be problematic in many respects. Firstly, it is widely accepted that there exists no clear and direct link between participation and representation in international institutions, especially in the absence of global political parties.Footnote 156 Accordingly, it should not be assumed that the UN Parliamentary Assembly would be representative of a global citizenry. Secondly, despite the undeniable contribution NGOs have made to enlarging participation in the international law-making process, they are not fully representative of civil society either.Footnote 157 Consequently, it is difficult to understand why the decisions of the UN Parliamentary Assembly should prevail over state-made international law norms as a matter of legitimacy.
Related to the point above, Leinen and Bummel argue that while international law is binding only on states, world law would apply ‘not only to states but also in principle to individuals and companies’, thus protecting ‘the planetary interest of humanity’.Footnote 158 In any case, world law would keep precedence over national and international law alike, without exceptions.Footnote 159 In this respect, the proposal for a UN Parliamentary Assembly aligns with the understanding of sovereignty endorsed by Falk and Strauss, who argue that the citizenry, rather than the state, is the fundamental source of political authority in both national and international settings.Footnote 160 Thus, far from presenting it as a utopian vision, proponents of the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly argue that:
Traces of world law are indeed already present in the international law system. This applies for example to the binding status of UN Security Council decisions under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the concept of the common heritage of humanity in the Convention on the Law of the Sea, the obligatory dispute settlement procedure of the WTO, the powers of the International Criminal Court to prosecute individuals and the emergent principle of the stateʼs responsibility to protect, which sets limits to state sovereignty.Footnote 161
In this respect, the proposal mirrors the remarks by Falk and Strauss that the creation of a global peoples’ assembly ‘would challenge the traditional claim by states that each has a sovereign right to act autonomously, regardless of adverse external consequences’.Footnote 162 Quite the contrary, a UN Parliamentary Assembly endowed with the power of passing binding legislation for both peoples and states would create a functional international system.Footnote 163 A possible counterargument is that, whether or not the decisions of the international institutions cited above are effective in influencing state behaviour, the idea of binding world laws extends the idea of international obligation to individuals and non-state actors like companies without dealing with the issue of noncompliance with world laws by either of them. As a result, it is not able to circumvent the inherently voluntary character of the international legal system. Nor does it address the issue of accountability of participants in the international legal system.
There is also another relationship between world law and international law. Proponents of the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly argue that customary international law is inadequate to regulate pressing issues of the international life. Conversely, a parliamentary assembly democratically elected by the world population would be ‘the appropriate mechanism for continuously defining the common interests of humanity’.Footnote 164 However, such statements evidence a fundamental misconception about the nature and purpose of customary international law: as spontaneous law, it simply crystallizes a state practice regulating a specific type of interaction among states. It does not, and cannot, purport to protect the interests of humanity. Moreover, the proposal seems to conflate the issue related to the undemocratic character of the process of formation of customary international lawFootnote 165 with that of efficiency of fully formed customary rules – that is to say, whether or not they are able to serve the purpose for which they have been created.
The considerations above suggest that world laws cannot circumvent the principle of state sovereignty simply by virtue of their adoption. Moreover, the purported power of the UN Parliamentary Assembly to pass binding laws aims at expressing the will of the international community in the absence of any criteria for determining such global will, thus revealing the ideological premises of the projectFootnote 166 and confirming that, in general, democracy is a teleological – hence, subjective – concept.Footnote 167 It follows that, from a theoretical point of view, the decisions of the UN Parliamentary Assembly cannot be seen as imposing obligations on states. From a practical point of view, similar proposals to establish a democratically elected chamber have proven abortive for lack of state support. For instance, the proposal to establish a WTO Parliamentary Assembly composed of representatives of national parliaments and endowed with legislative powers has been dismissed as incompatible with the WTO legal order and it is unlikely to ever be established.Footnote 168
The creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly may in theory be able to establish a new democratic entitlement. That, however, would entail the creation of an entirely different system of international co-operation markedly skewed toward world government rather than world governance. Current international practice suggests that this is an unlikely scenario, at least for the near future. The argument put forward by Childers and Urquhart that the functions of the citizens’ chamber would not ‘abridge the existing powers of governments in the UN’Footnote 169 confirms the difficulties of departing from the Westphalian model embedded in the structure of international organizations, including the UN.Footnote 170
5. Assessing the feasibility of the proposal
Is it possible or desirable to transplant a parliamentary model nominally inspired by the European Parliament, like the UN Parliamentary Assembly, in the UN? Should the European Parliament strengthen its formal level of support for the Campaignʼs proposal? Practical considerations warrant against the desirability of fostering such an institutional development.
Firstly, it appears that the proposal has received a cold reception by the EU itself. Support by the European Parliament in the form of recommendations to the Council is scant and fragmentary, although featuring in the debates of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. The Campaignʼs supporters argue that the proposal has received public endorsement by the President of the European Parliament in 2008Footnote 171 and 2013.Footnote 172 However, both instances of support turn out to be routine courtesy statements issued on occasion of meetings held at the European Parliamentʼs premises and organized by a Member of the European Parliament who is also the co-Chair of the Campaign for the establishment of the UN Parliamentary Assembly. In neither statement does the President of the European Parliament refer to the idea of a world parliament, which is the long-term goal of the Campaignʼs supporters.
Similarly, the proposal to establish a UN Parliamentary Assembly has not been taken forward by the UN. Presented in 2015 to the President of the 70th General Assembly,Footnote 173 the Campaignʼs appeal for the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly has not been further considered by the General Assembly or any other primary body of the UN. The only formal reference to the UN Parliamentary Assembly appears in the 2013 report of the Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order to the Human Rights Council, which mentions the desirability of having a consultative assembly at the UN similar to the one proposed by the Campaign supporters with a view to widening participation in the work of the UN.Footnote 174 However, the Independent Expertʼs report makes no reference to the long-term goal of creating a new primary organ of the UN. Another reference to the desirability of creating an institution like the UN Parliamentary Assembly appears in the UN Development Programmeʼs Human Development Report (2013) in the form of a guest article by the Campaignʼs co-Chair and does not amount to a UN endorsement of the proposal.Footnote 175
Secondly, as a matter of UN law, the chances of success of the Campaignʼs proposal to establish a UN Parliamentary Assembly appear very low. As it stands, the UN Parliamentary Assembly does not even meet the criteria for qualifying as an observer at the General Assembly, being neither a state nor an intergovernmental organization.Footnote 176 Exceptions to this rule exist. Most notably, the Inter-Parliamentary Union – an organization representing national parliaments, not individual parliamentarians, in Cooperation Agreement with the UN since 1996Footnote 177 – was granted observer status in 2002.Footnote 178 Formally classified as a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the Economic and Social Council, in 2001 the Secretary-General considered the classification outdated and no longer corresponding to the status of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which was to be seen as ‘an inter-State organization representing parliaments’.Footnote 179 He therefore recommended granting the Inter-Parliamentary Union observer status as an exception to the criteria set forth in General Assembly decision 49/426.Footnote 180 What differentiates the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the UN Parliamentary Assembly is the type of co-operation sought with the UN: the former promotes parliamentary debate and action in support of the achievement of the UN goals, including the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,Footnote 181 the latter promotes direct popular participation in the decision-making at the UN, a goal of dubious compatibility with the spirit and the letter of the UN Charter.
The case of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) also warrants caution in assessing the feasibility of establishing a UN Parliamentary Assembly. Established in 2000 as an association of political parties in Asia aimed at ‘promot[ing] regional cooperation through the unique role and channel of political parties’,Footnote 182 the ICAPPʼs goal is broadly similar to that of the UN Parliamentary Assembly. However, its application for observer status at the General Assembly has been rejected by the General Assemblyʼs Sixth Committee since 2011. Although committed to align its mandate to the UN goals,Footnote 183 the main reason leading to the repeated rejection is that the ICAPP is not an intergovernmental organization.Footnote 184 In the absence of a consensus among the Sixth Committeeʼs members and related backing by the UN Secretary-General, no exception can be made to the criteria set forth in General Assembly decision 49/426, as it happened in the case of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.Footnote 185 Perhaps most importantly, the Sixth Committee has repeatedly recommended applying for observer status at the Economic and Social Council,Footnote 186 thus refusing to foster a direct co-operation between the General Assembly and political parties of Asia composed of ‘democratically elected members in the parliaments of their respective countries’.Footnote 187
Unlike the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the ICAPP is not considered as unique in nature, as held by its members,Footnote 188 the reason being that it is not an inter-state organization representing parliaments. This makes the event that the General Assembly will ever establish the UN Parliamentary Assembly as a subsidiary organ highly unlikely, especially in light of the long-term goal of converting it into a world parliament with full legislative powers. Related to this is the fact that the EU has not committed itself financially to providing any institutional support to the creation of a popular chamber at the UN.Footnote 189 This stays in stark contrast to the approach taken to support the creation of the eventually abortive WTO Parliamentary Assembly.Footnote 190 Instead, the European Parliament is actively supporting the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO, which it co-founded in 2003 with the Inter-Parliamentary Union. Aimed at examining the effectiveness and fairness of WTO activities and improving dialogue between governments, parliaments, and civil society, the Parliamentary Conference on the WTO is a consultative body that meets once a year during the WTO Ministerial Conferences. It comprises national parliaments and other parliamentary assemblies, such as the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.Footnote 191 This suggests that, like the UN, the EU is keen to support inter-state entities endowed with consultative powers, not popular assemblies, as a way to democratize global governance. The finding also aligns with a strand of scholarly literature on the democratic deficit in global governance.Footnote 192
Thirdly, the campaigners argue that the UN Parliamentary Assembly should be funded through the UN regular budget or voluntary contributions by member states. An estimate of the costs will depend on the actual number of seats, which should be apportioned according to the principle of degressive proportionality adopted by the European Parliament.Footnote 193 However, the proposal puts a condition on the representation of non-democratic governments, which are already UN members, in the UN Parliamentary Assembly: absent the possibility of direct elections, delegates will have to be chosen from parliaments inclusive of opposition parties while appointment through the government will not be permissible.Footnote 194 Conversely, ‘delegates close to autocratic governments’ would be allowed participation, the reason being that for them ‘the experience of participating in an assembly and of cooperating with other delegates from democratic countries could set a powerful example and have a democratizing effect’.Footnote 195
As noted in Section 4.1 above, it is difficult to reconcile the democratic criterion for membership at the UN Parliamentary Assembly with the criteria for admission to UN membership set forth in Article 4 of the UN Charter. Even more problematic is to differentiate between non-democratic governments and autocratic governments. For instance, it is not clear whether authoritarian countries that are also permanent members of the Security Council like ChinaFootnote 196 and RussiaFootnote 197 should be excluded from membership of the UN Parliamentary Assembly. In any case, as Wheatley points out, ‘there is no breach of the obligations of membership by those states who are not democratic’.Footnote 198 Instead, there should be functional criteria guiding the selection of representatives. For instance, membership in the Human Rights Council is open to all UN members and based on equitable geographical distribution, the contribution of candidates to the promotion and protection of human rights and their voluntary pledges and commitments made thereto.Footnote 199 Absent any functional criteria for admission at the UN Parliamentary Assembly, a derogation from the criteria of Article 4 of the UN Charter would appear arbitrary and unjustified.
Finally, it is misleading to assume that allowing delegates from autocratic countries to work side by side with delegates from democracies will automatically produce democratizing effects. Participation of autocratic countries in the UN General Assembly should already serve the envisaged democratizing function. However, it is not apparent how and why the socialization of parliamentarians would have a better chance of success than the socialization of governments. On the one hand, previous studies have demonstrated that international organizations are successful at contributing to the democratization of authoritarian states when the latter experience tangible economic and military benefits from membership.Footnote 200 Similarly, Keohane, Macedo and Moravcsik argue that international organizations may succeed at making governments more respectful of certain democratic values, including the rights of minorities and the public interest.Footnote 201 Yet this often happens at the expense of popular control, thus undermining a different set of democratic values.Footnote 202 On the other hand, as Diamond points out, the internal democratic character of civil society itself, not the state, affects the degree to which it can socialize participants into democratic (or undemocratic) forms of behaviour.Footnote 203 In relation to this, Fukuyama also notes that, in democracies with low levels of income and education, clientelism is more likely to mobilize voters than promises of programmatic public policies.Footnote 204 This runs directly counter the theoretical premises of the proposal to establish a UN Parliamentary Assembly.
It stems from the above that the democratizing effects of the UN Parliamentary Assembly are likely to be limited and mainly confined to procedural functions. However, in the absence of a global citizenry organized around political affiliations, the risk is that the project will turn into what Keohane termed ‘a nominal democracy’ – that is to say, an institution meeting democratic standards on the surface, but lacking content.Footnote 205 Popular sovereignty and the right to seek to influence decisions in international institutions are not the same.Footnote 206 The former does not necessarily imply forms of direct democracy and the European Parliament should be wary of supporting distortions of the cardinal principles of international co-operation enshrined in the UN Charter. Moreover, as a matter of human rights, granting a voice to civil society in the international decision-making process does not entail a right to vote through global parliaments.Footnote 207
6. Conclusions
The idea of creating a world parliament is one of the boldest proposals ever conceived to establish a peaceful and prosperous international society. Civil society groups and scholars alike have engaged in a prolonged debate about the specific features a global parliamentary assembly should have to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century, globalized society. The proposal for the creation of a UN parliamentary assembly endorsed by the European Union since 1993 is a contribution to such efforts.
The proposal that the European Parliament has endorsed in its 2018 recommendation to the Council aims at establishing a new primary organ of the United Nations endowed with full legislative powers. Implementing such a proposal is challenging, since it advocates the institutionalization of a form of popular sovereignty in international relations that does not conform to the state-centred structure of the UN. At the same time, it is difficult to single out specific themes of international concern which have not been discussed by the General Assembly in over seven decades. As things stand, the UN Parliamentary Assembly and the General Assembly cannot coexist under the aegis of the UN. They are simply incompatible. Nonetheless, should the EU decide to go ahead with the proposal, a few suggestions may be taken into consideration.
Firstly, the name ‘United Nations Parliamentary Assembly’ is confusing as it is too similar to another UN principal organ. It should be replaced by another name. Secondly, in order to enable the UN Parliamentary Assembly to function in parallel with the General Assembly, a system of direct consultation modelled after the EU Commissionʼs public consultations with civil society could be added to the proposed framework of legislative powers of the UN Parliamentary Assembly with a view to allowing civil society to directly influence and shape the General Assemblyʼs policy-making.Footnote 208 Thirdly, the legislative powers of the UN Parliamentary Assembly could also be informed by the experience of the European Citizens’ Initiative.Footnote 209 This would allow the global citizenry to compel the General Assembly to discuss proposals for resolutions without necessarily being bound to adopt them. Finally, in relation to the voting procedure envisioned by the proponents of the UN Parliamentary Assembly, the use of some of the most recent technological advancements, such as digital ledgers embedded in online platforms, would likely achieve some aspects of the proposalʼs ultimate goal to provide a truly global and unmediated representative forum for the peoples of the worldFootnote 210 with no overhead costs adding to the UN regular budget.
Attempts at reshaping the intergovernmental machinery can only perpetuate the inherently voluntary character of the current system of international co-operation. Moreover, an institution with a universal mandate and quasi-universal membership like the UN cannot be used to govern the world. If a UN Parliamentary Assembly was to be created with the power of adopting world laws binding on states and people alike, it would effectively resemble a world government. What makes an international parliament is not (or not only) its composition, but the function it serves within a political system of international co-operation. Establishing a UN Parliamentary Assembly may create a legitimate model of international governance. However, it cannot be implemented without tearing apart some of the cardinal provisions of the UN Charter. Hence, it cannot be established through the evolutionary stages indicated by its proponents. This essentially relegates the project to the realm of utopianism. As such, it should be recognized as an aspirational goal only by the EU.
