Parliamentarians from around the world gathered at the United Nations in New York on 14 July for the IPU Parliamentary Forum at the 2026 UN High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF), where they reviewed progress and shared good parliamentary practice on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The annual HLPF is the main global accountability platform for […]
Last week, Geneva hosted the largest concentration of international AI governance activity to date. Three major UN-anchored processes converged in the same week for the first time: the inaugural Global Dialogue on AI Governance, the WSIS Forum 2026 and the AI for Good Global Summit, and the IPU was there to bring a parliamentary perspective into each. What came out of it were […]
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) has published new guidance urging lawmakers to act faster and more decisively against non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII), including sexualized deepfakes generated by artificial intelligence (AI), a phenomenon that disproportionately targets women and girls. Combating non-consensual intimate imagery: A parliamentary action guide warns that generative AI has made it easier, cheaper and faster […]
As Martin Chungong comes to the end of his 12 years as IPU Secretary General, he reflects on the iconic images that illustrate some of the defining moments of his tenure. Interview conducted by Thomas Fitzsimons, IPU Director of Communications. See also: 12 years at the helm: Martin Chungong, IPU Secretary General 2014-2026 – […]
Parliamentarians from the IPU’s Twelve Plus Group met in Warsaw last week to examine the risks and opportunities posed by artificial intelligence (AI) and social media for young people and human rights. The regional seminar Human Rights in the Digital Era. AI and Social Media: Opportunity or Threat for Youth? took place in Warsaw, Poland from 8 […]
Human Rights. Democratic freedoms. These are not abstract ideals – they are the foundations of everything parliaments exist to protect. Yet around the world, they are being pushed into the shadows. Parliamentarians are being silenced. Hard-won protections are being rolled back. The IPU’s new campaign Bring human rights into focus is a call to bring these […]
On 4 June BGIPU hosted in the Attlee Suite of the UK Parliament a meeting of the Alliance of Parliamentary Groups “For a Democratic Belarus”. The meeting brought together representatives of 9 national parliaments, the European Parliament and PACE, as well as speakers from the Belarusian democratic forces (Office of the President-elect of Belarus, Sviatlana […]
Following the success of the first IPU Global Conference of Women Parliamentarians in Mexico 2025, the Serbian Parliament hosted the second conference from 2-4 June this year. The theme of the conference was “Advancing parity: Breaking the barriers of gender stereotypes and negative social norms”. The conference brought together 193 parliamentarians (155 women MPs and […]
From 1 July 2026, for the first time in its 137-year history, the Secretariat of the Inter-Parliamentary Union will be managed by a woman. Anda Filip of Romania was elected the tenth Secretary General of the IPU at the 152nd IPU Assembly in Istanbul, becoming the first woman to hold the post since the Organization […]
More than a decade of quiet persistence, behind-the-scenes diplomacy and public campaigning by the IPU finally paid off in 2025 when former Iraqi MP Ahmed Al-Alwani was acquitted and released after 12 years behind bars on death row. As an MP, Al-Alwani was supposed to be protected by parliamentary immunity. But he was arrested in […]
