Program Areas

Program Areas

Join the Week of Action for a World Parliament from 19-27 October 2019

UN photo

Join our Global Week of Action from October 19-27 2019 and support the call for the establishment of a World Parliament that will give representation and political power to all world citizens.

The threat of climate change is global and demands global decisions that pave the way for effective global action. But the conditions for making such decisions are insufficient. Today’s international agreements are based on negotiations between government representatives with the mandate to defend the interest of their particular nations. The agreements they make do not reflect the interest of humanity as a whole and in addition they are not even legally binding.

It is time to change the way how international action is decided so that the climate crisis and other global challenges can be dealt with. The people of the Earth need to be organized in a more intelligent way than today. Nothing is wrong with nation states. What is wrong is the lack of citizen-based democratic decision-making at the global level. We invite you to help change that!

Photo Action for a World Parliament outside the Parliament building, Kigali, Rwanda

The Week of Action’s slogan is World Parliament Now!

We want to achieve as much change as possible as quickly as possible.

We want to achieve real impact. While we advocate for a directly elected world parliament that will have decision-making powers in matters of global concern, we also support a pragmatic first step that can be taken right now if the political will exists: the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA).

A UNPA could be set up as a UN body by a vote of the General Assembly without the veto powers in the Security Council being able to intervene. The assembly could initially serve as an advisory body and later be vested with rights of information, participation and oversight. Once a UN Charter review can be achieved, we want it to develop into a real world parliament. There is an international appeal for a UNPA that by now has been endorsed, across party lines, by more than 1,500 current and former members of parliament from over 100 countries.

With a world parliament in place, it will be possible to give weight to the long term interests of humanity and the planetary boundaries when making democratic decisions. This is needed not only to deal with the climate crisis, but also for other global threats such as nuclear weapons, tax evasion and crimes against humanity.

As world citizens, it is our right to participate in the governance of our global community and to choose representatives at the global level. It is also our duty to safeguard humankind as a whole and all life on Earth.

We call for individuals, organizations, groups and movements everywhere to join the Global Week of Action of a World Parliament, taking place from 19-27 October 2019.

Check out here what you can do to participate.

Should you use Facebook, here is an event page that you can join and share.

Petter Ölmunger
Petter is chair of Democracy Without Borders Sweden