I. Foreword

The search for a new representative body for citizens of the whole world was initially undertaken just after World War II by the founders of different so-called “internationalist” movements, such as the World Citizens. These groups recommended the institution of a world government that was to override geographical and state borders and manage human destinies, deeply bruised by the wars. The idea of a world government was not only very controversial but also difficult to implement, because the Cold War political framework set up at the time between the major powers brought this undertaking to a standstill.

However, in the context of present-day globalization, the question of the necessity and the viability of a World Parliament returns with particular acuteness. Political leaders and citizens alike feel the need to build a new body able to regulate conflicts so we can all live in peace in a world of diversity.

The perspective for conceiving a World Parliament was outlined throughout the eighties and in the early nineties. The Conferences organized by the United Nations, matched by simultaneous NGO conferences, announced the emergence of a new civil society on a world scale. New, because it was rid of the former ideological models and of the old social and political organization methods and it began to open new ways to face capitalistic globalization. The search for new paradigms, for new gender relations, for new relationships among generations, the appreciation of cross-cultural dynamics and of diversity, the demands for new human rights, the search for a new relationship with the Earth and with the universe: all of these elements constituted a fertile ground for this new, increasingly pluricultural world civil society.

While this new civil society was emerging, major changes were occurring: the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked a historic turning point, capitalistic globalization became the undisputed dominant system … some people even declared the coming of “the end of history.” Citizens found themselves facing capitalism with no ideological or economic adversary to oppose it, with Soviet society and its satellites engaged in relentless dissolution. The economy, society, and culture were undergoing deep transformation as a consequence of the new globalization of the financial and trade markets and an increasingly strong expansion of capitalistic modernization.

In the beginning of the twenty-first century, the first World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil, offered a new perspective for rallying world civil society independently of the United Nations bodies. The Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World, initiated in 1994, also constituted an unprecedented and pioneering process for new ways of building citizenship on a world scale, standing at the threshold of the new century. Other alliances and international networks were also developed, about one hundred of which are part of the International Council of the World Social Forum.

Pursuing the World Social Forums constitutes a promising perspective. The third WSF was held recently and was attended and followed by more people than the first. The next one will be held in January 2004 in Mumbai, India. It will be preceded by numerous continental and thematic forums. This yearly event is an indispensable meeting point for the actors of many and various initiatives fighting for a socially responsible globalization that will be able to foil the hegemony of a globalization controlled by capitalistic forces, among others by the most conservative sectors of the North American political system.

The pursuit of World Social Forums or other similar international gatherings, however, would gain from focusing on the perspective of a World Parliament. Otherwise, they might simply be watered down or scattered.

One of the main proposals resulting from the World Citizens Assembly held in Lille, France, in December 2001, was to launch the idea of preparing a World Citizens Parliament.
This proposal had already been hatching the task groups of the Alliance for a Responsible, Plural and United World for several years. In particular, the Thematic Workshops on global governance issues and on the renewal of political systems had highlighted the need of refounding governance systems on a global scale.

It is significant to note that at the World Citizens Assembly, this idea was put forward by the participants of the North America group: Rob Wheeler, Coordinator of the Millennium Peoples Assembly Network based in New York, launched this proposal when he reported on the group’s work. It is also significant that Siddhartha, facilitator of the Alliance in Asia Pacific, based in Bangalore, India, took up this idea in his closing speech in this same Assembly.

This being said, a World Citizens Parliament constitutes an unprecedented challenge. To build a representative, democratic body at the world scale is a task that citizens have never faced. Even at the national level, democratic systems are wanting in such aspects as proportional representation of populations and cultures, active citizens’ participation, responsible management of elected officials, transparency of the media, effective control of the exercise of power by those on whom such power is exercised, etc. Such problems would be even more severe on a global level.

Moreover, democratic practices are not in force everywhere, and in countries that lay claims to a longstanding democratic tradition, corruption, impunity, and lack of transparency in the management of the public affairs are common.

The invention of new bodies for citizens’ participation and action, in addition to alliances, forums, parties, or social movements, is a crucial challenge of our time. The preparation of a World Citizens Parliament can seem an immense task, but paradoxically it can help to overcome some obstacles in the search for a democratic renewal at the scale of the world. The momentum that this new deal will fuel on the international arena will encourage the questioning of the international and intergovernmental institutions, which remain hindered by the bureaucratic weight imposed by state systems, which everybody agrees have become obsolete and powerless.

The electronic forum facilitated by Rob Wheeler, Arnaud Blin, and Germà Pelayo launched in October 2002, which was backed by the Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation for the Progress of Humankind during its first phase (ended in April of this year), constitutes a fertile initiative. It enabled a remote Internet-based debate, cross-cultural and multilingual, among citizens, men and women, of all the regions of the world, on the essential questions raised by the project of a World Citizens Parliament. This initiative can have a historic significance in our budding twenty-first century, because at a time when crises and wars forebode a dark future, even darker than the one our grandparents faced at the beginning of the twentieth century, a World Citizens Parliament can seem a Utopian ambition, but can also be a historic opportunity for this generation and the next.

We do not have to explain that this concept paper is not a book. It is a collective working document, the authors of which are the participants and the Forum Coordination of the e-forum.

In a way, this kind of publication illustrates the determination to make the project of a World Citizens Parliament in the twenty-first century a collective and democratic adventure.

Gustavo Marin

Charles Léopold Mayer Foundation
for the Progress of Humankind
Paris
September 2003