E-Parliament

The e-Parliament is a non-profit organization that links together the world's democratic members of parliament and congress into a single forum. The intention is that this community of democratic legislators, together with interested organizations and citizens, can address a democracy gap at both the national and global levels.

The e-Parliament organises international parliamentary hearings on a number of issues, including climate change, democracy and security in space. The e-Parliament also polls legislators on topical issues and provides model legislation and policy ideas. The e-Parliament Ideas Bank [http://www.e-parl.net] , holds brief summaries of more than a hundred new policy ideas of global relevance. Membership of the e-Parliament is open to all democratically-elected legislators, as well as citizens, organisations and journalists.

Beginnings

e-Parliament was born in early 2001, when William Ury, co-author of the best-selling book ‘Getting to Yes’, and Nicholas Dunlop, a former Secretary-General of the legislators' network Parliamentarians for Global Action, were struck by an idea. By linking the world's democratic legislators together through the internet, with a voting system and committee structure comparable to that of a national parliament, it would be possible to address the lack of democracy at the global level.

By creating a kind of informal world parliament, they hoped to create the first genuinely democratic world institution. At the same time, they planned a parallel global problem-solving process, alongside the intergovernmental talks, which would be transparent, accountable, inclusive and flexible. Even though a global e-Parliament cannot make any binding decisions, and the power of decision rests (as before) in national parliaments, it could nonetheless be potentially influential, since legislators play a central role within each national government.

A three-year design process brought together leading legislators, researchers, civil society groups and business leaders in a creative brainstorming process. The result is the e-Parliament with the services provided through the e-Parliament website. The e-Parliament will develop gradually, issue by issue and adding additional services one at a time. It can engage steadily increasing numbers of citizens and legislators as time goes on.

The e-Parliament today

The e-Parliament secretariat employs staff in six different countries: Canada, Denmark, India, New Zealand, the Philippines and the UK. The Secretariat is led by Nicholas Dunlop, Secretary-General, a former Secretary-General of Parliamentarians for Global Action and Earth Action, and Executive Director Jesper Grolin, formerly of Greenpeace. The e-Parliament currently runs three networks of legislators, on energy and climate change, democracy and weapons in space.

Energy and Climate Change

On 17th-19th November 2006 the e-Parliament conducted a hearing on renewable energy and energy access in Kenya, following COP 13 of the Climate Convention. The hearing was attended by nineteen national and regional legislators from 13 African and European countries as well as eleven leading experts on energy policy.

The participants discussed how to face the climate challenge while ensuring that everyone has access to energy and focused on what action could be taken now in parliaments to meet this challenge. A number of useful policy ideas were presented and discussed in detail, ranging from the new Ghanaian energy efficiency label for electrical appliances, and steps to improve cooking stoves in Kenya, to Germany’s renewable energy law and Mauritius’ feed-in tariffs to encourage electricity production from sugar cane waste. A short report of the hearing is available with links to all the PowerPoint presentations made by the experts. [http://www.e-parl.net/pages/energy_hearing.htm]

The e-Parliament staff is now working with energy experts to help interested Members of Parliament to replicate in their own parliaments some of the policies presented at the hearing, and several new hearings on climate and energy are in the process of preparation.

Space Security

The e-Parliament space security hearing in September 2005, held in the US Congress, discussed the danger of an arms race in space and its negative impact on the civil and scientific uses of space. This concern was renewed by the recent news that China destroyed one of her own ageing weather satellites using a medium-range ballistic missile, adding hundreds of pieces of dangerous debris to earth orbit. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/6289519.stm] The e-Parliament will hold a second space hearing for legislators in the course of this year covering both the civil and military uses of space. The hearing will reflect the results of a poll of legislators as to what they consider to be the most important challenges in space.

Democracy

The e-Parliament is developing a democratic parliaments index for countries around the world which will not only focus on the fairness of elections, but also add critical information on the functioning of parliaments that is not currently provided by any survey. This will be followed by election alerts to legislators around the world when electoral fraud is reported, and hearings on different elements of the index. The first hearing of legislators to discuss work on democracy will be held in the first half of 2007, most likely in Brussels.

External links

*http://www.e-parl.net
*http://www.time.com/time/2004/innovators/200405/ury.html