The Parliamentary Vision for International
Cooperation at the Dawn of the Third Millennium
Declaration adopted by consensus (September 2000)
We, Speakers and Presiding Officers of Parliaments, are
meeting at the United Nations in New York on the eve of the Millennium
Assembly to pledge our commitment to international cooperation, with a
stronger United Nations at its core. We resolve to ensure that our
parliaments contribute more substantively to this cooperation by making the
voice of the peoples heard, thereby introducing a more manifestly democratic
dimension into international decision-making and cooperation. To help impart
fresh momentum to the United Nations, parliaments must be more closely
associated with its work so as to give real meaning to the opening words of
the United Nations Charter: "We, the peoples of the United
Nations"....
The Parliamentary Dimension of
International Cooperation
We call upon all parliaments and their world organisation - the
Inter-Parliamentary Union - to provide a parliamentary dimension to
international cooperation. Parliament is made up of men and women elected by
the people to represent them and express their aspirations. It is the organ
of State that allows society in all its diversity to participate in the
political process. Parliaments embody the sovereignty of the people and can,
in all legitimacy, contribute to expressing the will of the State
internationally.
To provide the parliamentary dimension, parliaments and their members
must assume increased responsibility in international relations, play a more
active role at the national, regional and global levels, and generally
reinforce parliamentary diplomacy.
The parliamentary dimension must be provided by parliaments themselves
first of all at the national level in four distinct but interconnected ways:
·
Influencing
their respective countries' policy on matters dealt with in the United
Nations and other international negotiating forums;
·
Keeping
themselves informed of the progress and outcome of these negotiations;
·
Deciding
on ratification, where the Constitution so foresees, of texts and treaties
signed by governments; and
·
Contributing
actively to the subsequent implementation process.
To achieve this
objective, we undertake to review within our respective parliaments how best
to make use of current parliamentary procedures so that parliament, with an
active input by all parties and members, can make an appropriate contribution
to governmental negotiations at the international level.
Information-gathering should be reinforced to enable parliament to keep
abreast of developments on international issues. Parliaments should also play
a more proactive role in processes relating to the ratification of and
compliance with international agreements. Throughout, parliament has a
particular responsibility to engage the public in a continuous dialogue and
facilitate its input into the decision-making process.
At the regional level, parliaments should make the best possible use
of regional inter-parliamentary organisations and through them seek to
influence the corresponding intergovernmental bodies. Parliaments should
examine closely the work of such organisations in order to increase their
efficiency and avoid duplication. They should also exchange experiences with
a view to improving and simplifying national legislation.
At the international level, concurrently with the reinforcement of the
political input of national parliaments into the process of inter-State
cooperation, the Inter-Parliamentary Union should be consolidated as a world
organisation for inter-parliamentary cooperation and for relaying the vision
and will of its members to intergovernmental organisations.
Thus, we hereby solemnly confirm our support for the
Inter-Parliamentary Union and our determination to participate in its work
with renewed vigour, thus giving the IPU the means to discharge to the full
the mission entrusted to it. In this process we also call upon the IPU to
undertake such statutory and structural reforms as may be required to
strengthen the organisation and its institutional links with parliaments.
By implementing this declaration, we propose to contribute
substantively to international cooperation and to make the voice of the
peoples heard within the United Nations, thereby pursuing the lofty ideals
enshrined in the Charter and meeting the challenges facing the world
community in terms of achieving peace, democracy, sustainable development and
social progress.
We decide to convey this document to our parliaments, as appropriate,
and to urge them to do everything possible to ensure that it is followed up
in a practical and effective manner. We also request our governments to bring
this declaration to the attention of the United Nations General Assembly for
debate. Finally, we call upon the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary
Union to seek ways of strengthening their institutional links and practical
cooperation.
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