Parliament buildings are often statements revealing a country’s vision, traditions and culture. Here are the five types of plenary halls and their political significance. As former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill commented: “We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us.” Architecture has a profound impact on our behaviour. The size and shape of a […]
A BGIPU delegation visited Serbia from the 9 to 14 July 2023. The delegation was led by Jackie Doyle-Price MP who was joined by Wayne David MP, Matthew Offord MP, Tan Dhesi MP and Lord Rennard. The group visited Belgrade and Novi Sad and the visit came shortly after a visit to Parliament by Serbian […]
As he enter his final months in office, IPU President, Duarte Pacheco of Portugal, was invited to visit to Palace of Westminster to address the BGIPU Executive Committee on the key challenges and successes of his time in office. He noted a key highlight have been the steady and progressive rebuilding of the IPU’s scope […]
The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) has prompted many experts to warn about its impacts on democracy. With that in mind, the IPU is preparing a series of five articles on the topic. In this second piece, the IPU asks Denis Naughten, Chair of the IPU’s Working Group on Science and Technology, what advice […]
BGIPU hosted a delegation from Belgium on 4 and 5 July. The delegation included Stephanie D’Hose, President of the Belgian Senate, Andries Gryffroy, President of the 12+ Group in the IPU and Vice-President of the Belgian Senate and Michel De Maegd, Member of the Belgian IPU Group and they were accompanied by Peter Vercammen, Official of the […]
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 […]
From 20-22 June, BGIPU had the honour to host a bilateral delegation of parliamentarians and officials from Ukraine led by Oleksandr Kornienko, First Deputy Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, in association with the Ukraine Recovery Conference. In addition to a busy programme of calls on UK parliamentary counterparts, including the Speakers of both […]
BGIPU was delighted to host a reciprocal visit from Members of the Republic of Korea’s National Assembly on Wednesday 14 June, following a successful visit to Seoul last year. The visit was led by former Minister for the Environment, Hon. Jeoungae Han, who played a key role in hosting the BGIPU delegation in Seoul in […]
