Description

1995 provided a host of round-number anniversaries. Foremost was the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. Hopes were high that the 50th would bring major reform of the UN System. Unfortunately, hopes that rely on numbers are rarely realized.

Parliamentarians for Global Action co-sponsored an international parliamentary conference on the United Nations in Gifu, Japan. But the resumption of French nuclear testing on the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki - rudely intervened. Responding to this transgression cut into the time we would have preferred to devote to loftier goals. Our meeting with the Japanese Prime Minister centered on opposition to the French tests as well (page 34).

The French had announced their plans to resume testing shortly after the NPT Review and Extension Conference. Apparently their idea of "utmost restraint" (pledged at the conference) was to test more intensively than in a decade. PGA's approach to the NPT Conference - held on the 25th anniversary of the treaty's entry into force - was very practical: the future of nuclear non-proliferation depends not on some new treaty deadline a quarter-century or more away, but on how the NPT functions in the next five or ten years.

Given the dismal record of past review conferences, PGA proposed reforming the review process. In the end, this proved to be the crucial ingredient for agreement on extending the Treaty (page 19). Chalk up another success for PGA? Perhaps we should wait to see how the new process works when it is put to the test beginning in 1997. Clearly, it is critical that all nuclear tests have stopped by that time. The Gifu meeting came on the heels of the Fourth World Conference on Women - held on the 20th anniversary of the First. PGA members, mainly women, were very promment and active in Beijing.

I was proud to see my predecessor as International President, Minister Silvia Hernández, leading the Mexican delegation to the Conference. Our presence at the Copenhagen Social Summit had paved the way to Beijing, but we also ensured that the 1994 international conference in Cairo on population did not fade from view. In October, we convened key committee members from parliaments in the North to rededicate themselves to fulfilling the assistance promises made to the South in Cairo (page 13).

It was in Copenhagen that PGA and the World Bank first began to explore the possibilities of cooperation. In my view, it is critical that the World Bank not talk solely to the Finance Ministers. For better or for worse the impact of World Bank decisions is felt first and foremost by the poor. Parliamentarians have no obligation to ensure that poverty alleviation is given top priority. In October, we had an outstanding opportunity to convey that message to the leaders of the World Bank (page 1).

Increasingly, PGA's work has a regional dimension. I presided at a conference on conflict resolution in South Asia (Page 26). And in Africa, Burundi has been the destination of a veritable stream of PGA delegations (page 5). Its multi-ethnic parliament must be the place where the Hutu/Tutsi conflict is resolved through debate and legislation not violence and mayhem. In the Western Hemisphere, our delegations carried a similar - albeit less urgent - message to Haiti and to Suriname (page 9).

The International Law Program had a 50th anniversary to commemorate: the Nuremburg Trials. Sadly, it is none too soon for international criminal law to be enforced again in Europe. A new set of high expectations will soon accrue to the year 2000 - a round number if ever there was one. PGA will be alert as always, to opportunities for a "major breakthrough." We know how to be a catalyst for change when the opportunity presents itself. But we will also continue the steady, quiet work of strengthening the role of negotiations, the rule of law, and democracy.

Mr. Murli Deora
International President of Parliamentarians for Global Action