The World of Parliaments - Issue N°10, page 3

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ISSUE N°10
JULY 2003
Page 3 of 7

C O N T E N T S
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Editorial

IPU Conference in Chile

IPU News

Dossier: Parliamentarians active on the international political scene

Gender Issues: Women MPs and the IPU

IPU Activities: Parliament and oversight of armed forces

Parliamentary Developments

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Mr. Ricardo Lagos
Chilean President Ricardo Lagos inaugurated the 108th Conference in Santiago on 6 April 2003.

"Diplomacy between peoples"

Q : Mr. Ricardo Lagos, you inaugurated the 108th Inter-Parliamentary Conference as President of Chile. Can parliamentary diplomacy be useful in the current international context?
Ricardo Lagos : It is important to recall that parliamentary diplomacy is direct diplomacy. Parliamentarians are the representatives of the peoples. Parliamentary diplomacy is the diplomacy of the peoples. As a result, it has the legitimacy of each and every one of them. The 108th Inter-Parliamentary Conference is important for Chile and we are very happy to welcome parliamentarians from all over the world to our country.

Parliaments to oversee trade negotiations at the WTO Conference in Cancún

Parliaments and the WTO
Belgian MP Geert Versnick was the moderator for a round table on "Parliaments and the WTO" that took place at WTO Headquarters in Geneva, in conjunction with a public Symposium on challenges to be met by the Cancún Conference. From left to right: Mr. John Dupraz (Swiss MP), Mr. Supachai Panitchpakdi (WTO Director-General), Mr. Geert Versnick, Mr. Michel Hansenne (Euro MP), and Mr. Ricardo Melendez-Ortiz, Executive Director of the ICTSD (Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development).
Photo WTO/C. Velasquez

Concerned at the lack of progress in the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations, conducted under the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO), a parliamentary Steering Committee composed of representatives of some 20 national parliaments and regional assemblies met at the Headquarters of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Geneva to consider ways of enhancing the transparency and democratic accountability of the WTO.

The Committee endorsed the initiative of the IPU and the European Parliament to hold a special parliamentary session in Cancún, Mexico, at the time of the fifth WTO Ministerial Conference, where government representatives will gather for a mid-term review of the current round of trade negotiations, including the implementation of the Doha Development Agenda.

The parliamentary session in Cancún will take place on 9 and 12 September as a parallel event to the Ministerial Conference and will focus on some of the most controversial areas of current trade negotiations, such as agricultural export subsidies, intellectual property rights and access to essential pharmaceutical products, and trade in services. While leaving the job of actual negotiations to governments, members of parliaments intend to exercise their right of overseeing government action in this field.

In February this year, the MPs adopted a declaration in Geneva in which they insisted that "further trade liberalisation should take into account national development policies within an equitable rules-based trading system. The accession of new countries to the WTO is crucial to enable it to become a truly universal organisation. Our goal is to promote trade that benefits people everywhere, enhances development and reduces poverty".

"We want the IPU to wield real influence"
Belgian MP Geert Versnick was actively involved in drawing up the blueprint for IPU reform. He sums up the issues at stake for us.
Q : Why is the IPU reform important?
Geert Versnick IPU reform is very important because we want the Organisation to wield real influence. We have proven it by adopting a resolution on the war in Iraq. The new Assembly, which replaces the present Conference, will meet twice a year and will be composed of a "Standing Committee on Peace and International Security", a "Standing Committee on Sustainable Development, Finance and Trade", and a "Standing Committee on Democracy and Human Rights".
Q : Just what is the reform?
G.V.: The new structure will help the IPU become more topical. These committees will have a president and several vice-presidents who will be able to react more quickly to issues of concern worldwide and to be in touch, especially via today's technological means. Naturally, any decisions taken by this Bureau will have to be approved by the Organisation as a whole, during the Assemblies. Some decisions taken by the Bureau may be contested by some IPU member parliamentarians, and I think that this is a good thing. It is important that there should be a real debate within the IPU, like the one we have had here in Santiago on the emergency supplementary item relating to the war in Iraq. This tension and the negotiations that made it possible to work out a resolution on this point caught the interest of the journalists in attendance and were given wide coverage in the national press and by the international news agencies accredited in Santiago.
Q : Does this mean that the IPU must take political stands more often in order to be present on the world political scene?
G.V.: I believe that a meeting of parliamentarians that cannot take political positions amounts to a travel agency. And we do not want to be a travel agency. The IPU is the world organisation of national parliaments and we want to be an association of political leaders mindful of their duties towards the voters they represent.

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