We are sharing this blog post as a part of our collaboration with Democracy Without Borders, and the Campaign for a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly; the original blog post can be found here: https://www.democracywithoutborders.org/16550/over-100-civil-society-groups-issue-statement-for-a-more-democratic-un/
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On the occasion of the International Day for Multilateralism on 24 April, a group of 100 civil society organisations has issued a joint statement calling for a more democratic UN. Signatories include organisations such as Avaaz, Greenpeace and Open Society Foundations as well as networks such as the Coalition for the UN We Need, Forus International, Together 2030 and Together First.

The campaign is spearheaded by CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation, Democracy International and Democracy Without Borders. Under the header “We the Peoples,” a reference to the first words of the United Nations Charter Preamble, the joint document is calling on the UN to implement three specific reforms aimed at giving people, elected representatives and civil society a stronger voice and more influence. 

Three demands with “transformational potential”
The statement “for inclusive global governance” first calls for a World Citizens’ Initiative which enables citizens to put items on the agenda of the UN General Assembly or the UN Security Council if proposals reach a certain threshold of popular support.

Further, the campaign promotes the creation of a UN Parliamentary Assembly composed of elected representatives to act as a watchdog and “connecting the people with the UN and reflecting a broad diversity of global viewpoints”.

Finally, the document recommends setting up a UN Civil Society Envoy “to champion the implementation of a broader strategy for opening up the UN to people’s participation and civil society voices”.

The document points out that the proposed changes “will enhance the legitimacy of global governance and facilitate its transformational potential”. According to Lysa John, Secretary-General of CIVICUS, “these three initiatives have game-changing potential to overcome blockages in the UN system. If implemented in earnest they will enable the UN to respond more effectively and with greater inclusivity to global challenges such as discrimination, inequality, conflict and climate change,” she explained. 

The Executive Director of Democracy Without Borders, Andreas Bummel, said that “strengthening and revitalizing multilateralism requires to allow for more input and participation beyond member states. This is what our three proposals will achieve.”

Input for the UN’s “common agenda”
A resolution adopted by the UN-General Assembly on the occasion of the UN’s 75th anniversary in 2020 tasked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to compile a report on furthering a “common agenda” which includes upgrading the UN and boosting partnerships.

“It is of the utmost importance that we use this opportunity to make the UN fit-for-purpose. We are calling on UN Secretary-General Guterres to usher the UN into a new, more participatory era,” said Bruno Kaufmann, Board Member of Democracy International. 

In 2020, the UN undertook a broad public consultation. According to the UN’s final report, a UN Parliamentary Assembly and a UN World Citizens’ Initiative were among the proposals most frequently mentioned by citizens in the field of renewing the UN.

On social media, the campaign is using the hashtag #WeThePeoples. The civil society statement remains open for endorsement on the website here. 

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune” so urges Brutus in telling Cassius to seize the day in Shakespeare’s “Julius Cesar.” Sun Tzu who in the “Art of War” states “opportunities multiply as they are seized” greatly influenced both Mao Zedong and Ho Chi Minh. These sentiments endure. Those whose endeavours prosper are those who see the opportunity for their cause and exploit it. 

A history of global crises and opportunities
The One World Trust (OWT) has been seeking a better-governed world since its foundation, often seizing on the main issues of the time to explain why the current chaotic management of our common resources is not only inappropriate, but also dangerous for humanity and our delicate environment. In the 1960s and 1970s, it was the Cold War and the threat of nuclear weapons that could lead to annihilation: the first time in history that humanity had the power to destroy itself and our planet, couched in the chilling concept of Mutually Assured Destruction. (Arguably, this threat continues to increase today, despite not generating the same degree of mass concern.) Inequality, growing disparity between rich and poor (even if absolute poverty has been reduced), absence of access to meaningful education, clean water and sanitation and healthcare have been with us throughout that period and have captured global attention through the SDGs and other international processes. Just as the Geneva Conventions outlawed the previous impunity of belligerents in the treatment of opponents including their enslavement so the genocide and crimes against humanity first adjudicated at Nuremberg and Tokyo led finally to the creation of the International Criminal Court. WFM/IGP (of which OWT is a long-standing Member Organisation) played so vital a role in convening civil society in support of this by creating the Coalition for the International Criminal Court in the 1990s, some 2,500 NGOs worldwide, that academic lawyers have told me that without WFM/IGP there would not now be the ICC.

There is now a new imperative — the spread and impact of a deadly virus which has no respect for national borders, ethnicity or creed. Is the pandemic the catalyst to move to a better system — as has previously been stimulated in the aftermath of conflagration and massive bloodshed? Certainly, there is the common characteristic of the loss of life: the deaths from Covid-19 in the United States now exceed the losses of that country in the two world wars and Vietnam War combined. Will this be sufficient to prick the global conscience? How does a world whose both formal and informal governance mechanisms are based on the nation state (and especially the most powerful rather than the ones most in need) achieve a higher level of effective management to deal with transnational, global issues?  The call by more than twenty world leaders and global agencies for an international treaty to deal with future pandemics may be an aspiration of hope over experience but, aided by civil society, it could become a reality. Should we seize the day?

Accountability as key
The consensus among like-minded non-profit organisations has been that we need transnational governance with accountability to the global commons: a form of federal structure (so misunderstood and misinterpreted by its opponents in certain countries like the United Kingdom where there is no tradition of this form of government but fully comprehended in existing federal states such as India and Germany).  In a world dominated by nation-states (whose borders have often emanated historically from a legacy of territorial aggression, flawed treaty agreements and colonialism, which cut across linguistic, cultural and ethnic entities, and which cause so much current conflict and tension), the concepts of subsidiarity and greater local autonomy are important components for a more peaceful world. We have seen the success of the development of the European Union and the way in which the African Union has modelled itself on it, as well as many examples (some longstanding) of transnational parliamentary bodies which have enhanced regional solidarity. Many treaty-based groupings of states have their own parliamentary assemblies, both as a form of scrutiny and as catalysts for transnational debate: the Council of Europe and NATO are among the most prominent to act as guardians of human rights and collective security.
 
Therein lies the important aspect of any form of governance: accountability. All those with power must answer to a body representative of those on whose behalf they purport to act. Major bodies which have sprung up and which take globally significant decisions, such as the “Group of 7” (or “G7”) and “Group of 20” (or “G20”), and many other global governance bodies do not have that form of scrutiny. 

The next step is up to us
We are privileged but also challenged at a time in history when there may be an opportunity greater than has occurred within a generation to take forward the goals of a better governed world. We have seen the imperative from the way in which a global pandemic has been handled and drugs distributed, the lack of public accountability of gatherings of global leaders in the G7 and G20, the continued abuse of minorities, and the climatic and environmental crises facing our planet — all matters that can only be dealt with at a supranational level. We should not forget that in the ashes of the Second World War, Churchill, Eisenhower, Einstein and others all called for a world government. We have come a significant way on the journey through the establishment of the ICC. Hopefully, more commitments on global environmental governance, at least, will emanate from the Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP26) this autumn. Nevertheless, we have a long way to go.  With the UK hosting COP26 and now, post Brexit, looking to find a new place in the world as “Global Britain” there is every opportunity for OWT to seek to influence our own Government in taking a lead on some of these measures. The present time may not be as cataclysmic as the aftermath of war, but it may well be the moment to seize the day.