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Towards a World Parliament: A Summary of the Debate

Dr. Rasmus Tenbergen: Towards a World Parliament

1

Towards a World Parliament: A Summary of the Debate and a

Proposal for an Electronic World Parliament on the Internet

organized by Civil Society

Paper presented to the First Virtual Congress of the Community of World Citizens, July 2006,

by Dr. Rasmus Tenbergen1

1. Introduction

It has often been claimed that current world order should be democratized and that a World

Parliament would be a necessary and desirable element of such a democratic world order

(Held 1995: 273, Patomäki/Teivainen 2004: 139). There is, however, no detailed and

systematic general analysis of the potential creation of a World Parliament, which includes

an overview of the different possible models and an investigation of their advantages and

disadvantages. Such a general analysis could help to investigate whether and how a World

Parliament would contribute to the solution of the problem of the so-called “democratic

deficit“ in the international system.

The following paper tries to accomplish a first step in this direction. It summarizes the current

debate on a World Parliament and develops theses regarding the potential creation of a

World Parliament. This introduction (1.) is followed by a summary of the debates on the

global democratic deficit (2.), the desirability of a World Parliament (3.) and concrete

proposals for a World Parliament (4.). A separate section discusses the scenario of elections

for a World Parliament organized by civil society on the internet (5.). The conclusion (6.)

summarizes the findings of this paper in ten theses. This paper is not a value-free

description of different positions, it is trying to argue in favor of a World Parliament in general

and a special approach in particular. It is therefore an invitation to debate the findings in the

conclusion.

1 This paper is the result of many discussions with many different partners. I am grateful for all their

contributions, namely to Fabian Kyrieleis and Kenneth Kostyo for their important input.

Rasmus Tenbergen: Towards a World Parliament

2

2. The Global Democratic Deficit

The analysis of past research on global democracy and a World Parliament shows an

interesting ambiguity: on the one hand, the whole spectrum of global governance, global

democracy, and global democratization is subject of many scientific publications (among

many others are Drydyk /Penz 1997, Holden 2000, Scholte 2000,

Patomäki/Teivainen/Ronkko 2002, Slaughter 2002, Zürn/Zangl 2004) and almost a fashion

trend, because there seems to be a consensus that the democratic deficit (i.e. the insufficient

legitimization of important international institutions) is one of the main problems of

international relations (Crawford/Marks 1998 and Nye et al. 2003); on the other hand,

concrete proposals how to solve this problem are very rare.

There are many contributions to special aspects of this problem: to the reform of the United

Nations (Boutros-Ghali 1993b, Ruggie 2002, Patomäki/Teivainen 2004: 17) and the

European Union (for example the articles of Greven, Offe, Zürn and Grande in Greven/Pauly

2000: 35), to the necessity of more accountability (Held 2004a: 264), to the role of civil

society (Florini 2003: 219), and to the change in economic institutions such as World Trade

Organization, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank (Stiglitz 2002:214). These

contributions are helpful for a discussion on good global governance, but they do not offer

coherent solutions for the democracy deficit problem.

Proposals to reform the United Nations must manage the dilemma, that they either do not go

far enough to create significant change or go too far to be acceptable for current decisionmakers.

The analysis of the European Union as a case study must address the question of

whether Europe can serve as a role model for other regions or even for the world as a whole

(Greven/Pauly 2000). This applies in particular to the role of the European Parliament as a

potential model for a World Parliament (Falk/Strauss 2001) both in terms of the history and

the structure of this institution (Levi 2001).

Some contributions to the reform of the economic institutions, for example on the

parliamentary control of the World Trade Organization, are concrete in so far as they offer

specific proposals for the institutional design (Mann 2004, Shaffer 2004, Skaggs 2004). They

are, however, limited to the political control of economic processes and exclude other

political aspects like security policy. In contrast, investigations of the role of civil society often

deal with many different political areas, but on a rather abstract level when it comes to

Rasmus Tenbergen: Towards a World Parliament

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concrete proposals. The lowest common denominator seems to be the claim for more

transparency and accountability (Kovach/Neligan/Burall 2003).

This applies also to theoretical works in this context. There are abstract hints on a “coming

democracy” (Florini 2003) and even the broadly discussed and far-reaching theory of a

“cosmopolitanism” by David Held (Held 1995, Held 1996, Held/McGrew 2002, Held/König-

Archibugi 2003, Held 2003, Held 2004b, Archibugi 2002), but even in this most innovative

concept the focus seems to be more on theory-building than on concrete proposals for

detailed change in old or for new institutions.

3. The Debate on a World Parliament

The proposal to create a World Parliament has already generated important support in the

political arena, for example Olivier Giscard d’ Estaing’s “Committee for a World Parliament“

lists as members of the honorary boards names such as Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Nelson

Mandela, Sonia Gandhi, Shimon Peres and Jacques Delors. Many academics, however,

remain sceptical regarding the possible creation of a World Parliament.

The most important and most concrete contribution to the discussion is the debate between

Joseph Nye and Richard Falk and Andrew Strauss in “Foreign Affairs“ and in “World Link” on

the desirability of a World Parliament (Falk/Strauss 2001, Falk/Strauss 2002, Nye 2001, Nye

2002b). A “World Parliament” shall be defined for the following as “a global assembly where

representatives are selected on the basis of one person, one vote” (Patomäki/Teivainen

2004: 139).

Falk and Strauss argue that the creation of a global parliament would be the natural and

logical way to overcome the global democratic deficit (Falk/Strauss 2001). For Falk and

Strauss the European Parliament serves as a role model: similar to the European

Parliament, the World Parliament should start with only advisory powers and be founded by

only twenty to thirty avant-garde states which are economically and geographically diverse.

They hope that as time progresses it would gain more legitimacy and formal competencies

(Falk/Strauss 2001).

The proposal of Falk and Strauss has received some attention and has been discussed in

many contributions (Archibugi 2002, Monbiot 2003, Bummel 2005). This applies, however,

more to smaller and more specialized publications like “The Federalist Debate” (compare for

Rasmus Tenbergen: Towards a World Parliament

4

example Levi 2001, Cocciolo 2004 and Vallinoto 2004). The proposal has not led to a

paradigm shift and has not been supported by mainstream academia. It has for example

been rejected by Joseph Nye because Nye does not see the necessary condition of a strong

sense of global community realized and he assumes that citizens of many states are not

willing to be constantly outvoted by one billion Chinese and one billion Indians (Nye 2002b).

This argument is attacked by Falk/Strauss and others (Monbiot 2003: 119) with the hint that

empirical evidence shows, that multi-national parliaments vote according to issues rather

than according to ethnic aspects (Falk/Strauss 2002). This trend could even be strengthened

through a World Parliament and lead to “a political culture less beholden to nationalism and

more engaged in promoting human security” (Falk/Strauss 2002: 3).

Nye’s criticism that popular elections “might well produce an undemocratic body that would

interfere with the delegated accountability that now links institutions to democracy” (Nye

2002b: 5) is rejected by Falk and Strauss. They argue that a democratically elected body

cannot interfere with global democracy, that “far too many national leaders are not

democratically elected” and that even democratically elected representatives should not

decide on international questions without control (Falk/Strauss 2002: 2). The core of their

disagreement with Nye is according to Falk and Strauss a dispute on the nature of the

international system: Falk and Strauss do not accept state sovereignty as the leading

principle of the international system, they would rather like to see this replaced by citizen

democracy (Falk/Strauss 2002: 3).

4. Concrete Proposals for a World Parliament

There are not many concrete proposals for a World Parliament in the academic discussion.

Such proposals can be found on the internet (Alliance 21 2003, Johansen 2003) or in

publications which are of a more political than scientific nature (some references of this kind

are in the footnotes of Monbiot 2003 and Patomäki/Teivainen 2004). Monbiot offers a

proposal with arguments similar to Falk and Strauss. He tries to develop a simple model

based on the principle of “one person, one vote” and approximately six hundred multinational

electoral districts (Monbiot 2003: 99). Monbiot focuses, like many other authors, more on the

general argument than on concrete details of the organization of elections to a World

Parliament. The main difference of his model to Falk and Strauss is that his main actor is not

the national state, but civil society, which can elect a World Parliament “without permission”

of the national states (Monbiot 2003: 101).

Rasmus Tenbergen: Towards a World Parliament

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Bummel refers in his strategy paper for the “Committee for a Democratic UN“ to the proposal

of Childers and Urquhart (Childers/Urquhart 1994) and others to “create a Parliamentary

Assembly at the United Nations as new institution which is established as consultative, semiautonomous

subsidiary body to the UN General Assembly through a vote of the General

Assembly under Article 22 of the UN charter” (Bummel 2005: 109) and lists thirteen concrete

proposals on details of this institution (Bummel 2005: 108).

A detailed summary of both, the general discussion on democratic transformation of global

institutions and special aspects of a potential World Parliament, is offered in the work of

Patomäki and Teivainen (Patomäki/Teivainen 2004). The authors refer not only to the main

debates but also to critics like Bello and Wahl who fear too much centralization if a World

Parliament is established (Walker 1993, Bello 2002, Teivainen 2003a, Patomäki 2002a).

After a critical analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of a World Parliament Patomäki

and Teivainen regard the organization of a global referendum “based on a statistically drawn

representative sample of voters in different countries” as a meaningful first step towards a

World Parliament (Patomäki/Teivainen 2004: 146).

A short pamphlet by Andrew Strauss offers a comparative overview on different models of a

World Parliament or a “Global Parliamentary Assembly“ (Strauss 2005). After a summary of

his arguments for a World Parliament from other texts he distinguishes between four models:

1. an amendment of the UN Charter according to articles 108 and 109

2. the creation by the UN General Assembly as a Subsidiary Organ

3. Civil society organized elections

4. an interstate treaty process

Strauss calls the UN Charter reform model the „classical“ model (compare Sohn/Clark 1958)

and the one with the best legitimacy from the perspective of world public opinion, but he

expects strong resistance against this plan because it requires the consent of two thirds of

the UN General Assembly plus all permanent members of the Security Council. The problem

of veto powers disappears in the second model, Article 22 of the UN charter requires only a

two thirds majority of the UN General Assembly. In addition to legal doubts whether a

parliament could in principle be called a “subsidiary organ” of the UN General Assembly,

Strauss believes that this model would create political compromises. One example is the

recommendation of Bummel and others (Bummel 2005: 110) that “in the first development

stage, the delegates of the Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations are uniformly

Rasmus Tenbergen: Towards a World Parliament

6

elected from the midst of the parliaments of the participating countries” (Bummel 2005: 110).

Strauss fears that the special loyalties of national parliamentarians could endanger the

success of the project.

Compromises of this kind would be unnecessary if the elections for a World Parliament

would be organized by civil society. Even though Strauss preferred this model in the

beginning (Falk/Strauss 2000) and even outlined a model for its implementation (Strauss

2005: 8), he mentioned tremendous difficulties to organize and finance such a civil society

process. This problem would be far less important in the last model of a treaty between

avant-garde states which already have the financial and organizational resources for

complex elections. In addition to the arguments mentioned above (Falk/Strauss 2001),

Strauss highlights that this model gives the power to organize the parliament to the

participating states, which posses an interest in the success of the project (Strauss 2005.

10).

5. Elections organized by Civil Society: A provisional electronic World Parliament on

the Internet

If the thesis is accepted that the creation of a World Parliament would be a positive

development, all four models described by Strauss seem to be desirable. There is, however,

no consensus even among supporters of a World Parliament on the question, which of these

models is the most feasible and should be followed to implement the idea. This paper claims

that all four models would constitute a positive development on the international system, but

that elections organized by civil society pose the best chance of an implementation. This

applies even more, if in the beginning provisional electronic versions of a World Parliament

are created on the internet.

Pilot projects of this kind do already exist. Out of the many initiatives in this direction, only the

most radical example should be mentioned: the “World Parliament Experiment“ on

http://www.world-parliament.org. It would go beyond the framework of this paper to describe

this project and its aspects in detail, only a few basic aspects should be mentioned.

Based on the thesis that the creation of a World Parliament is the more likely the more world

citizens support it, individuals are invited to support the establishment of a provisional World

Parliament through their vote. They participate in a decision-making process with only one

ground rule which cannot be changed: that all aspects of the project (content, procedures,

Rasmus Tenbergen: Towards a World Parliament

7

and representatives) can be changed at any time though proposals of anybody, if there is

enough support based on “one person, one vote”. This is not a decision for direct and against

representative democracy, this experiment tries to combine the advantages of both models

by enabling the delegation of votes for smaller or larger parts of the project (the main

parliament, special sub-institutions or even single issues). It is the task of elected

representatives to present the results of the opinion-building process as claims to real life

decision-makers. Both, the legitimacy and power of these campaigns will increase with

growing numbers of participants. After a critical mass has been reached, it should be

possible to transform this provisional electronic parliament with only moral and advisory

powers to an institution that exercises a significant influence on actual political processes.

It seems to be important for the success of this project that its ambition is neither

overestimated nor underestimated. On the one hand, it seems to be crucial in the beginning

phase to keep the claim of a model for a global institution against accusations of naivety, on

the other hand, it should be clear in every phase of the project that representation and

legitimacy in a narrow sense can only be claimed for the participants of the project.

If elections organized by civil society include electronic parliaments, some objections against

this model lose their importance, for example the financial and organizational difficulties

mentioned by Strauss (2005: 8) are reduced dramatically. Monbiot (2003: 104) mentions the

possibility of a cheap electronic assembly, but regards it as an insufficient replacement of

face-to-face meetings. He does not even consider the possibility of a combination of both

formats, which could begin with electronic meetings that lead to non-virtual gatherings in a

later phase.

The strongest argument for elections organized by civil society and against the other three

models seems to be that measurement of success is much easier in this plan. While it is

difficult to see how far away the United Nations are from significant reform steps or how

close avant-garde states are to signing a treaty on a World Parliament, a civil society

campaign for a World Parliament gains legitimacy and chances of success with every single

individual supporting it. This argument can also be used to work against wide-spread

pessimism of global democracy activists. The collection of enough individual supporters is

difficult enough, however, it is already a sufficient condition for the realization of the project

and is therefore a concrete and realistic program of implementation.

Rasmus Tenbergen: Towards a World Parliament

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6. Conclusion

The main results of this paper are summarized in the following theses:

1. The global democratic deficit is one of the main problems of international politics;

2. The creation of a World Parliament would be an important step to solve this problem;

3. The four scenarios of Strauss (2005) to create a World Parliament (amendment of the

UN Charter, a subsidiary organ of the UN General Assembly, elections organized by

civil society, and an interstate treaty process) are all desirable;

4. Elections organized by civil society posses the best possibility of success;

5. This possibility of success can be additionally increased if the process starts with a

provisional electronic parliament on the internet;

6. A provisional electronic World Parliament on the internet should give its electors the

possibility to change any aspect (content, procedures, representatives) at any time, if

there is enough support for a proposal based on “one person, one vote”;

7. A provisional electronic World Parliament on the internet should give its electors the

possibility to decide on how far they want to influence the decision-making process

directly and in how far they want to delegate their vote to representatives;

8. A provisional electronic World Parliament on the internet should from the very

beginning, even with little support, claim to be a model for a global institution, but it

should be clear in every phase of the project that representation and legitimacy in a

narrow sense can only be claimed for the participants of the project;

9. A provisional electronic World Parliament on the internet should from the very

beginning, even with little support, try to influence real political processes;

10. The campaign for the creation of a World Parliament depends to a large degree on

the number of individual supporters. It should therefore put a main focus on this

aspect.

Rasmus Tenbergen: Towards a World Parliament

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