The Parliament of the World? Reflections on the Proposal to Establish a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly

Abstract

On 5 July 2018, the European Parliament adopted a recommendation to the Council endorsing a proposal for the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly. Conceived as a new primary organ of the United Nations, the Parliamentary Assembly aims at complementing the work of the General Assembly by giving direct representation to the peoples of the world and passing binding legislation. This article reconstructs the historical roots of the proposal and speculates about the possible legal implications for both the United Nations and its member states stemming from the establishment of an elected citizens’ chamber within an intergovernmental organization. An argument is made that in order to achieve the stated goals of the model of United Nations Parliamentary Assembly endorsed by the European Union, the required institutional changes to the UN system would be so radical as to effectively repudiate it in favour of a newly established system of international cooperation.

Keywords: UN Parliamentary Assembly; world parliament; global governance; world law