109th Assembly of the IPU, Geneva,
ÔÇÅ ROLE OF PARLIAMENTS IN ASSISTING MULTILATERAL ORGANIZATIONS IN
ENSURING PEACE AND SECURITY AND IN BUILDING AN INTERNATIONAL COALITION
FOR PEACE
By Mr. Takis Hadjigeorgiou, M.P.
Mr. President,
Parliaments and Parliamentarians, as the par
excellence representatives of their peoples’ will and conscience, are
not only legislators, as we know, but also scrutinizers and monitoring
agents of their respective governments’ work and policies. What is a
relatively new phenomenon is the role national parliaments have
gradually assumed in the field of diplomacy, as a result of the need to
have parliamentary control of governments’ international action.
Co-operation has acquired global dimensions, which extends into multiple
facets, depending on the field of interest or the geographical area or
both.
Peace and security, as a field of
potential cooperation, however, are global goods, which transcend
borders and are composed of or are interdependent with several other
fields and global goods, which concern the international community.
Part-issues include democracy, human rights and sustainable development,
the latter comprising economic, social and cultural progress.
Interdependence calls for co-operation in a spirit of respect for each
other’s freedom and rights. As soon as everyone understands that peace
is a commitment and not something that can be imposed by force, we will
have gone half-way to achieving it in conditions of permanence and not
as an interphase between wars.
Parliamentarians being better positioned
to listen to their peoples’ concerns and aspirations are the key actors
who can add that crucial human dimension to international relations,
breathing life and soul into the aloofness of cold policy and strategy.
In the longer term, no interest can be served if actions to promote it
breed frustration which matures into reaction and violence.
The link between constituents and the wider world, as
personified by parliamentarians, is a vital one in efforts to ensure
that security and peace prevail. Parliamentarians in international fora
are the voice of human beings and their worries and concerns around the
globe. That is why we applaude all initiatives by the IPU for dialogue
and co-operation between such a wide variety of parliamentary
organizations and the UN, aiming at mutually reinforcing actions that
will serve peace and security. These actions can protect humanity
against all dangers, which not only threaten its existence, but also
drain it from resources that would otherwise serve its advancement.
Cypriot parliamentarians are particularly sensitive to
both the issues which bring us together in this debate and to measures
which aspire to provide concrete answers and remedies thereto. Having
been themselves, along with all Cypriot people, the victims of
aggression by a neighbouring and much more powerful country, with over
one-third of their land under occupation for almost thirty years now and
with their fundamental human rights being trampled upon, they have every
reason to continue an unabated struggle. It is a struggle not only to
resolve the Cyprus problem, but also to ensure the effectiveness of the
international relations system, based on the rule of law and
strengthened by a multilateral network of co-operating national
parliaments, regional and international parliamentary organizations
with, possibly and hopefully, the IPU at its center and the UN as its
umbrella and guarantor. This must include all countries and all
organizations without exception as no one can be above the law and no
one is immune of threat.
September 2003
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