One week after the visit of the United Nations Secretary-General, the Advisory Group of the IPU Committee on United Nations Affairs held its first meeting at IPU Headquarters. The Advisory Group's Co-Chairpersons, Mr. Theo Ben Gurirab, Speaker of the National Assembly of Namibia, and Senator Rosario Green, a former Foreign Affairs Minister of Mexico, explain the importance of this new IPU Committee.
Mr. Theo Ben Gurirab
"Parliaments have become partners rather than adversaries of governments"
Q: The IPU is creating a new committee. What is its purpose?
Mr. Theo Ben Gurirab: The IPU's
importance as an institution representing national parliaments, which in turn represent their national citizens, has been recognized internationally. Following the meeting we held in Geneva, it will be recommended that the IPU Assembly set up an IPU Committee on United Nations Affairs, enabling the IPU to work more closely with the United Nations, including the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, and even the Security Council-but more importantly, at the management level, with the Office of the United Nations Secretary-General. Such a committee would enable the IPU to work more closely with our respective countries, and to link up with national parliaments and sub-regional organizations in the areas of peacekeeping, peace building, the Millennium Development Goals (in the case of developing countries), democratization problems and climate change. We are entering a new field in which the work of the IPU - the oldest political international organization - will reach down to the grassroots level. Through the IPU we will go to national parliaments, but also beyond: to rural areas to tell the people what the IPU stands for and is doing to promote social welfare and development.
Q: You have been President of the United Nations General Assembly. Do you think that the United Nations is now ready to forge a real partnership with the IPU?
T.B.G.:The UN recognized the IPU for the first time in its history under my presidency, during the period 1999-2001. Two years later the IPU was granted observer status, enabling it to participate fully in UN activities. The United Nations is now asking the IPU to institutionalize this partnership. As leading advocates of the people's interest, our two organizations will now be working together more closely.
Q: You have also been Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of your country. Do you have the impression that governments are now accepting the fact that parliaments can play a major role in international affairs?
T.B.G.: As democracy gains ground in many countries, parliaments are increasingly involved in national decision making and governance. In those countries, and hopefully others through IPU efforts, parliaments can be expected to play an important role -beyond their legislative functions- in promoting democracy, the rule of law and the involvement of citizens in decision-making processes. At home, parliaments have become partners rather than adversaries of their executive branch counterparts. The separation of powers -legislative, executive and judicial- must of course be preserved, but there is also a shared interest in the public welfare. The partnership we have now established between the IPU and the United Nations must extend as well to relations between governments and parliaments.
Senator Rosario Green:
"Parliaments can provide the fresh blood that the UN needs"
Q: What is your perception of the new committee?
Senator Rosario Green: I think it is crucial for the IPU to set up a special committee on UN Affairs and to find ways of communicating and cooperating with the United Nations. Of course, there have long been ties between the two organizations, but consolidating them has taken time. We have permanent observer status at the General Assembly, and the UN recognizes parliament's place - alongside the executive and judicial branches - as an essential part of the State. The UN and IPU must not be rivals. After all, to enter into force as treaties, UN resolutions require ratification by IPU Member Parliaments. Unfortunately, however, parliaments and elected representatives are not involved in the early stages of these processes and are consulted only at the end.
This is a problem not only for lawmakers - who often lack necessary information on UN resolutions - but also for governments, when it comes to convincing parliamentarians of the need to amend a given text so that international treaties can enter into force and be fully implemented.
Q: What will be the major challenge of this Committee?
R.G.:
To serve as a bridge between parliaments and the United Nations. This will be no easy task, and the Committee will need a clear mandate. We need to be more knowledgeable about the UN in order to support its work and explain it to our electorates. People are often unhappy about the contributions their countries have to pay to international or regional organizations. They do not necessarily understand the organization’s importance, and their elected representatives are not always able to explain it, as they themselves are often less informed about international matters than national ones. The new committee will give the United Nations a voice in our national assemblies and vice versa, to ensure that international relations are more in keeping with realities on the ground. There are three national branches of authority: the executive, the legislative and the judicial. The executive branch is represented at the UN—as is the judicial, in the form of international tribunals—but there are no clear representatives of the legislative branch. We, as the world organization of parliaments, stand ready to fulfil that role.
Q: As a former Mexican Minister for Foreign Affairs, do you think the time has finally come for governments to accept that parliaments have a role to play on the international scene?
R.G.:
Yes, I do. If I take what is happening in Mexico and apply it to other countries, I see that no government can act alone. Executive branches depend on support from the other two branches of government, and in particular from parliament.
Q: Does the same apply to the UN?
R.G.:
Yes, because the UN has been in crisis for
several years now; it needs new blood, and
parliaments can provide it.
What is the IPU?
The United Nations Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, paid a visit to the headquarters of the IPU in July 2007. Discussions with the IPU Secretary General focused on the question of climate change. Mr. Ban was pleased to hear that the issue had been debated at length at the recent IPU Assembly in Indonesia, which had seen the launch of a parliamentary campaign on global warming. The talks then turned to the pivotal role that parliaments can play in countries emerging from conflict where there are major UN peace building operations, and in particular the IPU’s work to promote dialogue among the political parties and factions in the Parliament of Burundi. Mr. Ban said that he was giving high priority to the work of the UN Peacebuilding Commission in Burundi and Sierra Leone, in which the IPU is also involved. They also discussed ways to for the two organizations to cooperate more closely in the areas of crime prevention, terrorism, drug trafficking and trafficking in human beings.
