PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

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An effective parliament (II): Parliament’s involvement in international affairs I 155 7. An effective parliament (II) : Parliament’s involvement in international affairs The previous chapter identified two different though related aspects of parliamentary power – its capacity or capacities and its relational standing to the Executive – and showed how both were important to parliament’s effectiveness in holding the government to account. In this chapter another dimension of power will be added to the equation: its territorial reach. Historically, parliaments have had scant involvement in international affairs. This was hardly surprising in the days when international affairs were largely confined to one country’s relations with others, which were handled by the executive branch of government through frequently secret diplomatic channels. Of course, many parliaments have had an important role to play in ratifying agreements that emerged from such diplomatic efforts, but matters were largely left there, with the exception of a few countries, like the United States of America and Mexico, where the Senate exercises a prominent role in foreign affairs. The advent of the twentieth century brought about change in two important yet very different ways. First, it was the century that saw the birth of international or multilateral cooperation. Faced with the realisation that nations are interdependent, the international community established a large number of international organisations. It was a trend that gathered great momentum. There are organisations with competence in almost every area of human activity: human and social rights, employment policies, trade liberalisation, financial transactions, environmental standards, and a great many others. These institutions are international negotiating fora where government representatives adopt decisions and treaties. For almost all of these agreements, the vast majority of parliaments were never consulted during the negotiations. They were simply invited to ratify the agreement and adopt and amend laws to implement them. Second, the twentieth century saw the emergence of regional integration processes for a variety of reasons, not least that the countries concerned aspired to unity to overcome historical divisions and secure regional stability and peace, were convinced that “there is strength in unity”, realised that nations inevitably belong to a “community” and were desirous of taking
156 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY certain decisions collectively to enhance them and construct a harmonised framework for life for their societies. States, therefore, decided to gradually integrate their markets, economies and other components of the State, taking into account the principle of subsidiarity, under which certain questions would be better dealt with at the national rather than the community level. This was invariably accompanied by a transfer of powers over decisions affecting people’s lives away from capitals and the oversight exercised by national parliament. This poses weighty problems which, as we shall see, are different from those caused by the emergence of international cooperation. In the first two sections of this chapter we will examine these two phenomena separately, providing examples of how parliaments can and indeed do exercise their powers to legislate and hold government to account at the global and regional levels. Their task is not made any easier by the fact that we live today in an increasingly interdependent world. The actions of a variety of external agents, geared both towards governments and citizens, impinge on every country in ways which may affect the lives and well-being of populations in relation to the environment, physical security and the security of information exchanges, public health, migration flows, criminal activity, and tax evasion, to name but a few. This phenomenon, which has greatly accelerated over the last twenty years, only serves to reinforce the interdependence of countries. It is a commonplace observation nowadays that the State in all its branches has been losing power to global forces and institutions through the process of ‘globalisation’, which restricts the autonomy of governments in a number of ways. For governments seeking to attract international investment and maintain or improve job opportunities for their citizens, global economic forces and international markets limit the room for manoeuvre regarding domestic economic policies. The implications of these developments for democracy are clear. What is the value of even the most democratic of institutions at the level of the national State if so many of the decisions that matter to the life of a country’s citizens, including their security, are taken beyond its borders, or by international institutions that are not subject to any democratic control or accountability? This gap between the national level where democratic institutions have historically been located, and the global or regional levels where so many decisions are now taken, is a major source of what is termed the international “democracy deficit”. It has been well expressed in this paragraph from the report of the United Nations Cardoso Panel (2004):
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MS. DULCE MARIA SAURI RIANCHO Membe
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Index Note: Page numbers in bold in
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types of, 8, 15-17, 69 voter partic
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Myanmar, 176 Namibia, 77, 110 Natio
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Sweden, 63, 75, 110, 112, 165 gende
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