The idea of a world parliament had already been proposed in the 1920s by the League of Nations, the predecessor of the United Nations (UN). Since then, this idea has lived on under the name of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, UNPA). Many world problems cannot be solved with local governments. Think of climate change and macro and monetary economy. That is one of the reasons why there is support for the creation of a UNPA in the world. In addition, the current undemocratic nature of world government and the UN plays a role. For these reasons, democratization on a global scale is needed, now more than ever. Could a world parliament be a solution?

Globalization

Globalization has been taking place over the last few centuries, or longer, depending on your definition of globalization. The use of technology (airplanes, internet) has accelerated this process significantly. Together with the lowering of national barriers through trade agreements, globalization is tending towards a situation where national borders are less and less important. Globalization has brought us benefits (especially the Western countries). Free trade often results in more competitive prices, and consumers have a wider choice of products.

However, there are also major problems with globalization as it is currently taking place. Climate change, human rights, social injustice and the global economy are closely linked to globalization. Underlying problems have to do with the influence of multinational corporations on legislation, or the absence of laws (or enforcement) allowing multinationals to do what they want. This is made worse by international trade agreements, for example the recent Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP, signed in February by its twelve member nations). These two treaties together cover more than 60% of the gross world product, which underlines the impact of these agreements. In principle, these agreements are consistent with the growth of globalization, but the disadvantages range from restrictions on cultural works (books, music, etc.) to unaffordable medicines in the Third World and an even greater power of multinationals over governments.

Solutions could be found in introducing global legislation (and enforcing it). For example, Lester Brown suggests in Plan B that we need to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 80% by 2020, stabilize the population at eight billion or less, eradicate poverty, and restore Earth’s natural systems, including its soils, waters, forests, grasslands, and fisheries. Clearly, if we are to achieve such an ambitious plan, laws will have to be changed and new laws will have to be introduced. In the case of carbon emissions, even less ambitious plans would require new legislation. Emissions trading is not an alternative here — it was clear to every thinker from the start that it could never have worked.

On the other hand, national constitutions (which should be the foundation of our constitutional state) often appear to have little effect on legislation. Legislation is often not enforced (in the intended manner). That is why we should also consider other options. A clear alternative is the bottom-up-approach. The first thing that comes to mind is the association and demonstration of citizens, writing letters and other actions. In addition, technology can help. Bitcoin, a decentralized crypto currency running on free software, is a good example of such a technology. But technology alone will not achieve our end goal. For example, if we Plan B we need to change laws. Given that both the grassroots and technical approaches on the one hand and legislative approaches on the other hand seem incomplete (or unbridgeable), it would be a good endeavor to combine these different ideas, as the Pirate Party is trying to do.

If there were a world government, it would in principle be possible to introduce and enforce global legislation. This could be a solution to many world problems, although there are questions surrounding the feasibility, desirability and necessity of creating such a global political authority. In the case of a worldfederation, in which nation states retain much of their sovereignty, questions of feasibility and desirability (tyranny argument) are less important. As for its necessity, the argument already given suggests that a world government is necessary

The World Federalist Movement (World Federalist Movement, WFM) was founded in 1947 by those who saw that the structure of the UN was too similar to that of the League of Nations, which had failed to prevent World War II. Both the UN and the League of Nations are loosely structured organizations of sovereign nation states, and have little autonomous power. A world federation, on the other hand, could resolve global problems in a much more direct way than international anarchy currently does, assuming it deals with them at all. Combined with a principle of subsidiarity, it would also only global issues (e.g. the negative effects of free trade or climate change).

The influence of the WFM is smaller than originally proposed. Nevertheless, it plays an important role in our society and influences global governance. Recent projects of the WFM are:

• International Criminal Court (International Criminal Court, ICC);

• Responsibility to Protect (R2P);

• United Nations Parliamentary Assembly (UNPA).

The first project has been accomplished, and the other two projects are in progress. Here we are discussing the last project, whose implementation should resolve the democratic deficit in either the actual world or a potential world government.

World Parliament

A UNPA consists of directly elected representatives of world citizens. The reason for such an instrument is simple: to counter the democratic deficit in world governance. This deficit can be seen in various ways, ranging from climate change to terrorism, and refugee problems to economic-monetary problems and other consequences of wrong geopolitics. If a world parliament can pass laws, a climate treaty would not be a treaty without obligations but something enforceable. It would no longer be accepted that treaties such as TTIP are drawn up in secret: the parliament would be involved in this and must pass the law. An additional advantage of a worldparliament would be that it would take into account the interests of citizens worldwide.

In theory, the introduction of a world parliament is simple. There are provisions in the UN Charter: Article 22 allows the UN General Assembly to create additional bodies if it deems them necessary for the performance of its functions. First, a UNPA would be advisory only, so that its creation would not be subject to the veto of the five permanent members of the Security Council.

Initially, a UNPA would have only an advisory role. It would be a major step forward if UN parliamentarians had a dialogue with the Security Council and other bodies (Childers and Urquhart, 1994, p. 180; Schwartzberg, 2012).

There are potential problems with a world parliament, ranging from questions about the composition of its members to whether it would even produce the desired results.

In “Creating a World Parliamentary Assembly” by Schwartzberg (2012), he specifically looks at the fact that many people live in China and India. This would be a problem because they would have too much influence through a world parliament. He addresses this problem in The Federalist Debate (Schwartzberg, 2002) and presents his alternative as a mathematical model in a monograph (Schwartzberg, 2012). His equations provide an alternative to the principle one person, one voteIn this alternative, countries with large populations have a lesser degree of influence than they would have with one person, one vote. Such an objective criterion would be a step towards this, but would also accommodate current geopolitical power relations: it would be more likely to be accepted by powerful countries with relatively few people. The core of his model, including equations, is presented and criticized by Van Hulten (2014). In this, I present four arguments against deviating from one person, one vote. First, nation states already have a relatively large amount of power through the UN General Assembly. Second, there are moral problems with the idea, similar to times when women, or people of color, were not allowed to vote or had a reduced voting weight. Third, a weighted vote might prevent us from creating a proper, fair world parliament. It might be difficult to change the design of the original parliament with weighted votes. Finally, weighted votes are unnecessary: land borders should not matter, and probably will matter less and less in the future. I therefore propose the principle of one person, one vote to be used when introducing a world parliament.

In our familiar electoral-representative system of democracy, we elect our representatives once every four years. After we have voted, we effectively lose our vote for the next four years. A politician promises certain things that he often does not keep during his time in power, and there is not much we can do about this. We should be able to withdraw our mandate at any time and give it to someone else, or we make the decisions ourselves. This is not possible in an electoral-representative system; we need direct and fluid democracy. In this, the influence of the vote lies with delegates instead of representatives (Van Hulten, 2014; references therein).

Fluid democracy is different from representative democracy because there are no representatives elected for a fixed term (typically four years). At any time, a person can elect another representative. Since there are still representatives, it is not the same as direct democracy. However, there is the option of direct participation, and one with a much lower threshold than in our current system (passive suffrage). If people have expertise on a particular topic, they can directly participate in discussions and decisions on specific matters. Furthermore, they can be delegates for others. Fluid democracy may even be essential to achieving truly democratic deliberation and decision-making in our society.

My preliminary conclusion is that a world parliament is needed but that the following necessary (not sufficient) conditions must be met when introducing it:

• One person, one vote;

• Near certainty of fair elections in participating countries;

• Expandability of the mode of participation beyond the electoral-representative model (including fluid democracy and sociocracy).

Literature:

• Van Hulten, Marco (2014). Democratisation of the World: Do We Need a Global Parliament? Paper presented in Frankfurt at the first ThinkTwice-conference.

• Brown, L. R. (2003). Plan B: Rescuing a planet under stress and a civilization in trouble. W. W. Norton & Company.

• Gilad, Oded (2013). Breaking the boundaries of national democracy. The Federalist Debate, (2), 44-45.

• Schwartzberg, J.E. (2002). Creating a World Parliamentary Assembly. The Federalist Debate, (3), 10-16.

• Schwartzberg, J.E. (2012). Creating a World Parliamentary Assembly: An Evolutionary Journey. Lulu.com.

• United Nations, Urquhart, B., & Childers, E. (1994). Renewing the United Nations System. Development Dialogue 1994:1-2.