Press release of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
Geneva/Berlin, 23 September 1999
N° 1

At the invitation of the German Parliament, the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) will hold its 102nd statutory Conference and related meetings from Sunday, 10 October, to Saturday, 16 October 1999, at the International Congress Centre in Berlin. The inaugural ceremony will take place on Sunday, 10 October, at 7 p.m. in the Reichstag building in the presence of H.E. Mr. Johannes Rau, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, and Mr. Wolfgang Thierse, the President of the German Bundestag.

The three guests of honour of the 102nd Inter-Parliamentary Conference will be the German Chancellor Mr. Gerhard Schröder, the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mr. Cornelio Sommaruga and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mrs. Mary Robinson, who will address the Conference on the afternoon of Monday, 11 October.

Representatives of the 138 parliaments affiliated to the IPU (founded in 1889 and based in Geneva) and of the 5 associated regional parliamentary assemblies will focus on the "Contribution of parliaments to ensuring respect for and promoting international humanitarian law on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions" and on "The need to revise the current global financial and economic model".

The Conference may also include an emergency supplementary item in its agenda; the Inter-Parliamentary Group of Portugal has requested that the "The worrying situation in East Timor" be discussed.

The Conference will also choose a supplementary agenda item in Berlin on 11 October from among the following requests which have reached the IPU Secretariat to date:

• "Support for Lebanon in its continuous efforts to implement UN Security Council resolution 425 adopted in March 1978", submitted by the Group of Lebanon.
• "Contribution of parliaments to peaceful coexistence, marked to tolerance, of ethnic, cultural and religious minorities within one State", submitted by the Group of Germany.
• "Preparing for old age - a challenge for the 21st century: parliamentary action to promote and protect the rights of older persons and to ensure active ageing and an effective dialogue between generations", submitted by the Group of Romania.
• "Refraining from imposing an economic, scientific and cultural embargo on peoples for political purposes and calling for its lifting", submitted by the Group of Iraq.
• "Action by national parliaments to ensure the speedy ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court", submitted by the Group of Italy.
• "Promotion of refugee protection through a parliamentary and legislative contribution to the principle of burden-sharing in solidarity with the countries and regions worst affected by mass movements of refugees", submitted by the Group of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
• "The human rights of migrants", submitted by the Group of Mexico (on behalf of the Group of Latin American countries).
• "Mobilization of the international community on behalf of earthquake victims in the Mediterranean region", submitted by Israel.

Contact: Mrs. Luisa Ballin, IPU Information Officer in Geneva. Tel.: (41.22) 919.41.16 or 919 41 27, fax: (41.22) 733 31 41 or 919 41 60, e-mail: lb@mail.ipu.org or cd@mail.ipu.org or in Berlin: Mr. Hartwig Bierhoff, Spokesman of the German Bundestag, tel.: (49.30) 227 3 71 71, fax: (49.30) 227 3 61 92 or Mr. Bernard Bode, Editor of the Parliamentary Press Service, tel.: (49. 30) 227 3 56 42/3 53 17, fax: (49.30) 227 3 60 01/3 61 91.

The IPU also has a Liaison Office with the UN in New York. Tel.: (1 212) 5575880, fax: (1 212) 5573954, e-mail: ny-office@mail.ipu.org