Program Areas

Program Areas

International Team

Andreas Bummel

Germany/South Africa
Executive Director

Andreas Bummel is founder and executive director of Democracy Without Borders. He is known worldwide as an expert and advocate for a world parliament. The campaign he has been leading for a Parliamentary Assembly at the UN has been supported by more than 1,500 parliamentarians from over 100 countries. Since 2021, he has been one of the co-convenors of the new “We The Peoples” campaign, which advocates for more democracy at the UN. Over 200 groups from around the world have joined it, including leading environmental and civil rights NGOs. From 1998 to 2018, he served on the Council of the World Federalist Movement, which played a central role in supporting the creation of the International Criminal Court. In 2018, his book A World Parliament: Governance and Democracy in the 21st Century (with Jo Leinen) was published. Since 2023 he is among those promoting a UN Special Rapporteur on Democracy. He has spoken at Yale University, the London School of Economics, the Athens Democracy Forum, and before the Pan-African Parliament, among other venues. In recognition of his work, the Society for Threatened Peoples made him a honorary member. He was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1976.

Global citizens’ assemblies: expanding the global democracy agenda
In recent years, democracies around the world have experimented with citizens’ assemblies. The main idea behind such assemblies is that randomly selected citizens, who form a statistically representative sample of
Farsan Ghassim and Andreas Bummel | 21.02.2024
International poll: public supports a world parliament and world law
An international survey on behalf of Friedrich Ebert Foundation found that public sentiment strongly approves of a world parliament in 13 of 15 countries covered.
Andreas Bummel | 05.10.2023
Survey: People ahead of elite, support parliamentary body at the UN
An international survey carried out in twelve countries across the world’s regions suggests that “the people are ahead of elites when it comes to fundamental issues of global governance and
Andreas Bummel | 22.06.2023
Democracy’s global decline is slowing down, says Freedom House report
The 2023 Freedom in the World report concludes that the global struggle for democracy approached a possible turning point in 2022
Andreas Bummel | 14.03.2023