The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) has prompted many experts to warn about its impacts on democracy. To explore this issue further, the IPU is preparing a series of five articles on the topic. In this first piece, IPU Secretary General, Martin Chungong, discusses the risks and opportunities for democracy and argues that we […]
On the eve of its 134-year anniversary and the International Day of Parliamentarism, the IPU and Uruguay have signed an agreement with the objective of opening a regional IPU office in Montevideo. The future office will be a pilot project designed to deepen the IPU’s engagement with parliaments in the Latin American and Caribbean region by encouraging […]
On 30 June 1889, visionary parliamentarians Frédéric Passy of France and William Randall Cremer of the United Kingdom brought together MPs from Belgium, Denmark, France, Hungary, Italy, Liberia, the United Kingdom and the USA in the first inter-parliamentary meeting in Paris, France. The Inter-Parliamentary Conference, later to become the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) was born. What […]
Twenty years after the first edition, the IPU and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have published a new version of a handbook for parliamentarians on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and its Optional Protocol. What is the CEDAW Convention? More than four […]
The first global Parliamentary Conference on Interfaith Dialogue: Working together for our common future is expected to conclude with a declaration that encourages interfaith dialogue and calls for all religions and beliefs to be treated equally. The Marrakesh Communiqué calls on parliamentarians to ensure that “all religions, beliefs and faith-based organizations are treated equally and without discrimination under the […]
To mark the two-year anniversary of the I Say Yes to Youth in Parliament! campaign, the IPU organized an online event called Shout Out to Youth Changemakers on 24 May 2023. The gathering served as a platform for taking stock of progress in implementing transformative actions, sharing success stories, and galvanizing further action to rejuvenate parliaments. The event brought […]
For the first time, the IPU has published a report which examines how parliaments around the world engage with issues of religion and belief. The IPU Parliamentary report on religion and belief explores how religion and belief are institutionalized in parliaments; for example, through legislation, representation, parliamentary committees and mechanisms for consultation with faith-based organizations or the […]
The International Day of Parliamentarism is celebrated every year on 30 June, the date in 1889 on which the IPU was founded. The Day was established in 2018 through a United Nations General Assembly Resolution. Instituting an international day for parliaments is particularly important at this critical time for parliamentary democracy, when people are losing trust […]
The Kingdom of Bhutan is one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world. The landlocked mountainous country has a fragile ecosystem with around 2,700 glaciers which are beginning to melt, causing floods and landslides. The country suffers from prolonged and extreme droughts which increase the risk of biodiversity loss and forest fires. Climate change […]
The planet is heating up – fast. According to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations body for assessing the science related to climate change, “keeping warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels requires deep, rapid and sustained greenhouse gas emissions reductions in all sectors. Emissions should be decreasing by now […]
