Suggested NGO Principles for an Effective Parliamentary Forum for the WTO

Since the creation of the WTO, scrutiny of the work of the organization has been a matter of growing interest among parliamentarians from all regions of the world. Parliamentarians attending the WTO Ministerial in Qatar gathered November 11, 2001 for a meeting organized and chaired jointly by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) and the European Parliament. That meeting mandated a Steering Committee, led by the EP and IPU, to prepare options for the establishment of a parliamentary dimension for the WTO.

A parliamentary oversight body would help make the WTO more externally transparent. This document outlines suggested NGO principles for an effective parliamentary forum for the WTO.

AN EFFECTIVE PARLIAMENTARY BODY – SOME NGO BENCHMARKS

1) SUPPORT IN PRINCIPLE
A parliamentary body would enable oversight of the WTO by elected representatives of the world's citizens and would therefore contribute to enhancing the democratic legitimacy of the WTO. Civil Society Organizations should support the establishment of a consultative parliamentary oversight body for the WTO which functions effectively and which contributes to international discourse on trade and trade-related issues.

2) COMPLEMENTARITY TO IMPROVED NGO ACCESS RIGHTS
A parliamentary forum for the WTO would not obviate or diminish the need for other measures to increase WTO transparency and accountability, especially improvements in NGO rights and privileges at the WTO. The parliamentary dimension, and increasing NGO access, should be complementary initiatives, pragmatic and mutually reinforcing steps to enhance democratic accountability for the WTO.

3) CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION IN PARLIAMENTARY FORUM
Civil Society representatives can provide important contributions to parliamentary discussions of WTO decisions and their impacts on the world’s citizens. A parliamentary forum for the WTO should make provision for civil society representatives to attend and participate at meetings of any WTO parliamentary forum.

4) AN AUTONOMOUS FORUM
The WTO parliamentary forum should be free to adopt a meaningful and progressive agenda. Its agenda should not be limited to the implications of WTO decisions at the national and regional level, though this will be an important part of its work. It will serve not only to exchange information among parliamentarians but also to help parliaments "oversee," understand and critique the activities and decisions of the WTO. Its agenda should therefore include matters related to the work of the WTO itself, as well as the range of trade-related issues that have for good reason aroused concern among broad sections of public opinion.

5) REPRESENTATION
A parliamentary forum is intended to allow the representatives of citizens to have a voice in the work of the WTO. A parliamentary forum will draw its membership from national and regional parliaments. Representation in a WTO parliamentary forum need not mirror the one representative per state model that we find in the WTO itself. Eventually, some time after the parliamentary body has been established and proved its usefulness, representation could be based on a formula that reflects the distribution of the world’s population.


FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Fergus Watt World Federalist Movement – Canada (wfcnat@web.ca)