1. Mankind faces the task of ensuring the survival and well-being of future generations as well as the preservation of the natural foundations of life on Earth. The inclusion of the people into the institutional structure and into the decision-making mechanisms of the international system thereby has essential importance.

2. The populations of the UN member states have to be better and more directly included into the activities of the United Nations and its international organizations. They must be allowed to participate in order to prevent growing discontent, to secure acceptance and legitimacy of the United Nations and international co-operation as well as to strengthen the United Nation’s capacity to act. The Committee for a Democratic UN (KDUN) conceives the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA) as a decisive step towards the introduction of a new quality, a new impetus and a stronger representation of citizens into the international system.

3. A Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations would not simply be a new institution. As the voice of citizens, taking a global view in the common international interest, the Assembly would be the manifestation and vehicle of a changed consciousness and understanding of international politics. To bring about such a change is of major importance in coping with the existential challenges facing humanity.

4. The UNPA is to be regarded and designed as a parliamentary umbrella and parliamentary focal point of international cooperation. The commissions of the UNPA should regularly include national parliamentarians, who are not members of the UNPA, but are experts belonging to the respective commissions of their national parliaments. Delegations of the UNPA should be directly admitted to international governmental conferences.

5. Addressing the possibilities and concepts for reforming the United Nations and the UN system should be one of the thematic main tasks of the United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. As a unique and institutionalized hinge between parliaments, civil society, the United Nations and governments, the UNPA could become a political catalyst for further development of the international system and of international law.

6. As a first step, the Committee for a Democratic UN recommends the creation of a Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations as new institution which is established as consultative, semi-autonomous secondary body to the UN General Assembly through a vote of the General Assembly under Article 22 of the UN Charter. Alternatively to that, as far as the Inter-Parliamentary Union is ready and fulfills the preconditions, the Inter-Parliamentary Union could be transformed into a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly in form of a secondary body or alternatively a special organization on the basis of a decision under Article 22 or on the basis of a cooperation agreement on the mutual relations with the United Nations. Both options are open for development.

7. The Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations should be open to all member states of the United Nations which are provided with a constitutionally embodied parliament.

8. The Committee for a Democratic UN recommends that in the first development stage, the delegates of the Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations are uniformly elected from the midst of the parliaments of the participating countries.

9. The determination of the number of delegates per country in the UNPA should be left to the political negotiations of the governments during the preparatory process. Basis of the negotiations should be a commitment to a graduation oriented according to population size, corresponding, in principle, to existing parliamentary assemblies. Before entering into the negotiations on the actual distribution it is recommended that an upper limit for the total number of delegates be defined. This number probably lies between 700 and 900.

10. The actual financial need for the first step can only be quantified if it is clear how the UNPA is to be designed, for example composition, voting procedure, participating states and legal basis. A first rough total estimate on the basis of the conclusions of the Committee for a Democratic UN comes to 100 to 120 million Euro per year. This figure is based on the assumption that all UN member states participate which possess a constitutionally elected parliament.

11. According to the example of the European Parliament, the initially only consulting Parliamentary Assembly at the United Nations should, within further stages of development, step by step be provided with genuine rights of information, participation and control.

12. The establishment of a directly elected world parliament with political competences is the most far-reaching concept of global democracy. The Committee for a Democratic UN supports the idea of such a world parliament. Efforts for a democratisation of the international system, however, are inextricably linked with comprehensive questions of human development. The Committee for a Democratic UN explicitly supports the initiative of the Global Marshall Plan for a world-wide eco-social market economy, since it identifies in the surmounting of extreme poverty and of the prosperity gap in the world one of the conditions for a far-reaching democratisation of international relations.

13. Under existing conditions, a world parliament cannot be realized from one day to the other. There is need for realistic and pragmatic alternatives which, however, are open for further development. In order to achieve the vision of a world parliament, a long-term development strategy has to be striven for. Manifestation and vehicle of this strategy is the UNPA.