PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY - Inter-Parliamentary Union

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Japan’s ODA is effectively reaching the people who really need it and whether the budget is being used efficiently, and to evaluate the Government’s ODA policy”. In the fiscal year 2004 missions were sent to China and the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil, each lasting about ten days. The resulting reports are circulated widely, within and without parliament. The Swedish Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee has developed an integrated policy for global development, which seeks to improve the coordination of government policies in areas such as trade, agriculture, the environment, security and migration, so that they contribute to a just and sustainable global development. The Committee also requires the government to report regularly on its priorities in relation to the World Bank, IMF and the regional development banks. Another example of an attempt to develop a more integrated policy across this sector is the establishment by the Belgian Parliament of a special Committee on Globalization, which holds hearings on different subjects with experts and representatives from civil society, and seeks to influence government policy through resolutions adopted in plenary session. Among the subjects the Committee has dealt with since it was established in 2003 have been the Tobin tax, global governance, institutional problems of the World Trade Organization (WTO) , agricultural issues in WTO negotiations, the problems of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and Trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPS) in the WTO, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), access to water for all, fair trade and tax havens. Following these hearings, bills have been drafted in the Belgian Parliament on a Tobin-style tax on international financial transactions, and another that would require the government to submit an annual report outlining the steps taken to fulfil the Millennium Development Goals, and the activities undertaken by Belgium’s representatives at the IMF, World Bank and UNDP. Trade An effective parliament (II): Parliament’s involvement in international affairs I 165 Despite its name, WTO is rapidly becoming more than a mere trade organisation. Its decisions now extend far beyond the traditional domain of tariffs and trade in goods, and reach deep into domestic affairs affecting areas as diverse as intellectual property, services, banking, telecommunications and government procurement. WTO has a growing impact on national health, education, employment, food safety, environment, as well as the management of natural resource such as forests, fisheries and water.
166 I PARLIAMENT AND DEMOCRACY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY Unlike most other international treaties, WTO agreements not only bind nations with regard to the definition of common objectives, but their implementation is enforced through an effective dispute settlement mechanism. This has direct economic consequences for entire nations, as well as the private sector. The ongoing expansion of WTO into new areas has broad implications for legislatures which perceive it as a challenge and react by protecting their ability to regulate in accordance with the delicate balance of power struck in each country’s constitution. The effects of this process differ from one national system to another but are basically of two kinds: regulatory effects (when the legislator’s ability to pass laws is fenced off by new rules at the international level) and constitutional effects (transfer of power from legislators to the Executive). For more information, see the discussion paper by Matthew Stillwell, Managing Attorney of the Center for International Environmental Law, “Why legislators should care about the WTO”. In many cases, WTO decisions promote international trade by defining the sort of laws that legislators can and cannot enact, and by establishing the standards they must meet. As a result, parliaments find themselves in a situation where thay are obliged to approve implementing legislations without having the possibility to ensure that they correspond to national objectives and popular aspirations. The tension between WTO decisions and national laws is intensified when governments use the dispute settlement system to challenge each other’s national laws. This is one particular area where parliamentary oversight of the negotiating process takes on particular importance and many parliaments have now taken steps to keep themselves informed of the progress of negotiations and seek to engage their government on the policies it should pursue. As a complement to these efforts they have also joined the IPU and the European Parliament in an annual Parliamentary Conference on the WTO where they are able to monitor WTO activities, maintain dialogue with governmental negotiators and facilitate information exchange and capacity building of national parliaments in matters of international trade.
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■ the fixed office; An accessible
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■ collaborating with NGOs in loca
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An accessible parliament I 81 estab
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■ a public record available on li
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case in Switzerland, the country wi
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Page 128 and 129: An effective parliament (I): The na
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Sweden, 63, 75, 110, 112, 165 gende
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