IPU-UN COOPERATION INTENSIFIES DURING BUSY WEEK IN NEW-YORK

The week of 18-22 October centred on the annual Parliamentary Hearing and saw the unfolding of negotiations leading to a draft resolution on Cooperation between the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. On 21 October, the debate on cooperation between the United Nations and the IPU was held in the General Assembly hall. Several Member States (Austria, Bangladesh, Belgium, Chile, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Switzerland, Uganda) spoke eloquently in support of further strengthening cooperation between the two organizations. Following these statements, the President of the IPU outlined his vision of the future of cooperation founded on the impressive achievements of the last few years, as confirmed by the recent Report by the UN Secretary General on this issue.

The resolution on cooperation (A/RES/59/19) was eventually co-sponsored by 106 Member States and adopted by consensus on 8 November. For the first time the resolution welcomed "the annual parliamentary hearings at the United Nations as a regular feature of the programme of events held at the UN Headquarters on the occasion of the sessions of the General Assembly". This is a significant acknowledgement of the role that such hearings have been playing in recent years in bringing the voice of parliaments closer to the United Nations and to the international community that it represents.

In order to allow all Speakers to attend the second World Conference of Speakers of Parliaments, the resolution calls upon the host country to extend the usual courtesies to the participants of all the parliamentary delegations of State Members of the United Nations.

With its more focused agenda and panels bringing together MPs, senior UN officials, scholars and practitioners, the Parliamentary Hearing on disarmament, peace-keeping, and peace building saw an impressive turnout of some 180 MPs from 70 countries. The substantive outcome took the form of a number of concrete recommendations for followup action (the final report, panel presentations, and list of participants are available here). In the operative paragraphs, the UN General Assembly "welcomes with satisfaction the decision to convene the second World Conference of Speakers of Parliaments at the UN Headquarters in September 2005", and "encourages the United Nations and the Inter-Parliamentary Union to continue to cooperate closely in various fields, in particular peace and security, economic and social development, international law, human rights, and democracy and gender issues, bearing in mind the significant benefits of this cooperation". The Resolution also acknowledges the leading role taken by the IPU in consulting national parliaments on how to develop the parliamentary dimension to the work of the United Nations, adding that the General Assembly "looks forward to learning of the outcome of this process prior to taking a final decision on the recommendations of the [Cardoso] Panel in regard to Parliamentarians".

Senator Sergio Páez The IPU is bringing the parliaments to the United Nations and the United Nations to the parliaments. We have always insisted that this is a two-way relationship. The IPU mobilises those parliamentarians who have practical expertise on specific issues and helps them interact with each other and with relevant United Nations bodies. For its part, the United Nations takes action to improve understanding and knowledge of its aims and objectives, thereby making sure that parliamentarians can serve as its political arm.