E-Parliament
Encyclopedia
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 legislator
s, together with interested organization
s 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 journalist
s.
’, 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.
, 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.
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.
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 satellite
s 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.
.
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...
that links together the world's democratic
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
members of parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
and congress
Congress
A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different nations, constituent states, independent organizations , or groups....
into a single forum. The intention is that this community of democratic legislator
Legislator
A legislator is a person who writes and passes laws, especially someone who is a member of a legislature. Legislators are usually politicians and are often elected by the people...
s, together with interested organization
Organization
An organization is a social group which distributes tasks for a collective goal. The word itself is derived from the Greek word organon, itself derived from the better-known word ergon - as we know `organ` - and it means a compartment for a particular job.There are a variety of legal types of...
s and citizens, can address a democracy gap at both the national and global levels.
The e-Parliament organises international
International
----International mostly means something that involves more than one country. The term international as a word means involvement of, interaction between or encompassing more than one nation, or generally beyond national boundaries...
parliamentary hearings on a number of issues, including climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, 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 journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
s.
Beginnings
e-Parliament was born in early 2001, when William Ury, co-author of the best-selling book ‘Getting to YesGetting to YES
Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In is a best-selling 1981 non-fiction book by Roger Fisher and William L. Ury. Reissued in 1991 with additional authorship credit to Bruce Patton, the book made appearances for years on Business Weeks "Best Seller" list...
’, and Nicholas Dunlop
Nicholas Dunlop
Nicholas Dunlop is Co-Founder and Secretary-General of the e-Parliament and founding member of the World Future Council.-Work:Nicholas Dunlop is co-founder and Secretary-General of the e-Parliament, an initiative to link up the world's democratic members of parliaments and congresses into a global...
, a former Secretary-General of the legislators' network Parliamentarians for Global Action
Parliamentarians for Global Action
Parliamentarians for Global Action is a non-profit and non-partisan international organization of more than 1,300 free elected legislators from 130 democratic countries . It was established circa 1978 as Parliamentarians for World Order engaged in a range of action-oriented initiatives that promote...
, were struck by an idea. By linking the world's democratic legislators together through the internet, with a voting system
Voting system
A voting system or electoral system is a method by which voters make a choice between options, often in an election or on a policy referendum....
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: CanadaCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
and the UK. The Secretariat is led by Nicholas Dunlop
Nicholas Dunlop
Nicholas Dunlop is Co-Founder and Secretary-General of the e-Parliament and founding member of the World Future Council.-Work:Nicholas Dunlop is co-founder and Secretary-General of the e-Parliament, an initiative to link up the world's democratic members of parliaments and congresses into a global...
, Secretary-General, a former Secretary-General of Parliamentarians for Global Action
Parliamentarians for Global Action
Parliamentarians for Global Action is a non-profit and non-partisan international organization of more than 1,300 free elected legislators from 130 democratic countries . It was established circa 1978 as Parliamentarians for World Order engaged in a range of action-oriented initiatives that promote...
and Earth Action, and Executive Director Jesper Grolin, formerly of Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
. The e-Parliament currently runs three networks of legislators, on energy
Energy
In physics, energy is an indirectly observed quantity. It is often understood as the ability a physical system has to do work on other physical systems...
and climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
, democracy
Democracy
Democracy is generally defined as a form of government in which all adult citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Ideally, this includes equal participation in the proposal, development and passage of legislation into law...
and weapons in space.
Energy and Climate Change
On 17-19 November 2006 the e-Parliament conducted a hearing on renewable energyRenewable energy
Renewable energy is energy which comes from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat, which are renewable . About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from...
and energy access in Kenya
Kenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, 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
Home appliance
Home appliances are electrical/mechanical machines which accomplish some household functions, such as cooking or cleaning. Home appliances can be classified into:*Major appliances, or White goods*Small appliances, or Brown goods...
, and steps to improve cooking stoves in Kenya, to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
’s renewable energy law and Mauritius
Mauritius
Mauritius , officially the Republic of Mauritius is an island nation off the southeast coast of the African continent in the southwest Indian Ocean, about east of Madagascar...
’ 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 raceArms race
The term arms race, in its original usage, describes a competition between two or more parties for the best armed forces. Each party competes to produce larger numbers of weapons, greater armies, or superior military technology in a technological escalation...
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 satellite
Weather satellite
The weather satellite is a type of satellite that is primarily used to monitor the weather and climate of the Earth. Satellites can be either polar orbiting, seeing the same swath of the Earth every 12 hours, or geostationary, hovering over the same spot on Earth by orbiting over the equator while...
s using a medium-range ballistic missile
Ballistic missile
A ballistic missile is a missile that follows a sub-orbital ballistic flightpath with the objective of delivering one or more warheads to a predetermined target. The missile is only guided during the relatively brief initial powered phase of flight and its course is subsequently governed by the...
, 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 BrusselsBrussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...
.