For a Global Democracy Forum and a Coalition for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly

by Fernando Iglesias

January 2007

For those who are committed to the creation of a democratic global order, one of the most difficult problems is to establish the point of development at which humanity currently is in this regard. One has to avoid any unjustified optimism that could lead to utopianism as well as equally destructive pessimism leading to an underestimation of actual political possibilities. On the one hand, many of the attempts made by the world federalists and the movement of the world citizens in the past eventually have been premature and caused a loss of time and energies. On the other hand, there are at least three reasons for thinking that a new and more concrete opportunity is just around the corner:

• For the first time in history, the project of a democratic political unity of the world is a necessity that is becoming apparent for average people. They get aware of this since their daily lives get affected by global phenomena and threats more and more often. Global warming, international financial collapses, massive migrations, fundamentalist terrorism, militaristic unilateralism, world-wide mafias, fiscal paradises, international disputes for raw materials, increasing inequality, nuclear proliferation, crimes against humanity, loss of control on biogenetics, etc. are just the visible part of a bigger iceberg with which our planetary Titanic risks to collide. These global crises express the many global troubles humanity faces here and now and for which there are neither national solutions nor democratic, accountable and representative institutions able to act at the global level.
• As the situation gets progressively clear for most conscious human beings, a theoretical corpus on globalisation and an impressive amount of papers, books and journalistic articles about its political aspects have developed very fast. Most of them are clear on the need to democratise the existing global order, whereas the most advanced ones call in a more or less clear way for values such as world federalism, global democracy and universal citizenship.
• Furthermore, global public opinion is increasingly aware of the elitist and undemocratic character of the current international political architecture, so that a world-wide social movement that opposes war, inequality and injustice has become a permanent actor at the global level. Even if it isn’t fully consistent and lacks of concrete proposals for the future, it expresses this extended perception that the national/inter-national order is unable to cope with the mentioned “challenges of globalization”. At the same time, the creation of new agencies such as the G8, the World Trade Organization (WTO) or the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the importance that the existing two supranational structures (the European Union and the United Nations) have acquired show the concern of both the public and the political leaders on the necessity of managing global processes and the need of creation of democracy and justice above national frames.

As usual, the cup of the democratic global order may be seen as half-full or half-empty. But the point is about how deep these amazingly fast changes are and what the best strategy is to redirect abstract and negative energies towards concrete and positive goals. Clearly, one of the extremes of this equation is symbolized by frantic claims such as “Let’s create a World Parliament here and now!”. But the contrary wing is composed of those who do not understand the accelerated character of change in global times, so that they believe that almost nothing is possible but waiting for the “natural” development of things or – may be – for another global catastrophe (such as the Second World War that “originated” both the United Nations and the European Union) before a consistent step can be done.

The reasonable approach must be somewhere between these two extremes. But: Where exactly? I believe that although the creation of democratic global institutions is still not immediately possible, the situation allows for a rapid development of two meaningful preparatory tasks: The world-wide popularisation of the debate about these matters and the creation of a global coalition able to give impulse to the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA), the first step towards a World Parliament.

No matter how optimistic or pessimistic a person is, two undeniably successful experiences have taken place in the last years: The rise of a global coalition of NGOs for the International Criminal Court (which has played a decisive role in the creation of the ICC) and the considerable success of the World Social Forum (WSF), which -in spite of its limits – has opened the first global space for the discussion on global matters. I wish to argue that both of these examples show us how to dramatically improve the situation through innovative tools. I refer to:

• A Global Democracy Forum (GDF) to be developed according to an improved model of the World Social Forum. The GDF could be vital to open a planetary debate on the topics of world federalism, global democracy, universal justice, world citizenship and so on. It should be an open space focussed on the building of a democratic world political mainframe through concrete proposals. It must also be able to capture the attention of the citizens of the world through CNN, BBC, Al-Jazeera and other global mass media. More importantly: Not just the global civil society and its NGOs must be invited to make a contribution, but global leaders, political parties, trade unions, national and regional parliamentarians and governments, as well as those academics and writers who have developed an amazing corpus on all these topics during the last few years. If this GDF were successful, the majority of humanity would be able to see current global dilemmas in a new perspective: That of global democracy and world federalism. Furthermore, the contact among civil, political and intellectual global actors should generate new synergies and a consistent step would be done in a short time.
• Secondly, the valuable work of the Committee for a Democratic UN (KDUN), whose campaign for the creation of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly I endorse and promote, should be continued through the building of a global coalition able to redouble the bet. If the success of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court (CICC) and its more than 2,000 associated members was not just the fruit of chance (and for sure it was not), this is the only instrument able to capture the attention and help of political leaders, parties, parliamentarians and governments in order to make the UNPA a feasible project. In fact, behind the scenes several NGOs have already joined forces to prepare for the creation of such a coalition. This global Coalition for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (CUNPA) would also allow for the inclusion and contribution of the many organisations and individuals that already work on these matters and whose efforts are being wasted by isolation and lack of resources. At the same time, it would allow all of them to maintain their political and financial independence. If I am not wrong, this was the key for the success of the CICC project: Conciliating co-operation and autonomy.

A forum to open the discussion on global democracy at a planetary level (the GDF) and a coalition to campaign for the first democratic global body (the CUNPA): these are two concrete proposals for the world movement that works for a global democratic order. They should provide a consistent frame for the unity of the two main traditions that are part of it: Those of world citizens and world federalists, capitalising decades of valuable but premature attempts, providing a consistent direction for the future of the world social movement that was born at Seattle and grown at Porto Alegre and creating a link between people and movements and democratic institutions. The justified criticism on the amateurism of the organisations that have already tried such strategies in the past cannot hide the fact that they also express a real need and an increasing possibility.
After the outstanding success of the World Social Forum and the Coalition for the International Criminal Court, which started with minimal means: do a Global Democracy Forum and a Global Coalition for the UNPA sound utopian? I rather think they can make the difference in linking the most promising players of the global scenario, which have been identified by David Held: the Scandinavian and European countries, which have developed a long tradition of liberalism and social-democracy, the European Union, which is the major experiment on supranational democracy, the progressive forces inside the United States that strongly oppose the Washington Consensus and the Washington Security agenda, the developing countries that struggle for more equitable rules in global finance and trade, the vast universe of global NGOs, the most progressive and pro-democratic UN agencies and officials, the economic forces that desire a more stable and well managed global economy and -last but not least – the arising world social movement. All of them need new imaginative tools able to provide a concrete plan of action for the building of a more democratic global order.

From the international coalition for the abolition of landmines, to the Coalition for the International Criminal Court to a Global Coalition for a UN Parliamentary Assembly, and from social and economic world forums of Davos and Porto Alegre to a Global Democracy Forum to be planted at some global capital of the world: This is the promising way that the globalization of social processes have opened for a world movement for a global democracy. Let’s find common ground together – beyond utopianism and passivity – where the seeds of a democratic global order can grow!