World Parliament Experiment

Would the citizens of the world be able to put aside their differences and work together towards a common goal? Is it possible to govern a world consisting of hundreds of different nations and groups of people in a way that everyone’s voice is heard? Will the international community ever manage to create a global democracy where each individual has an equal opportunity to influence global politics regardless of his or her nationality, religion, race and background? And is national and international democracy necessarily the best solution to Global Governance?


The world today

The planet Earth consists of 6.5 billion people who are divided into 202 countries. Despite the fact that we are separated by political boundaries, we are all human beings who share the same basic needs. The role of politics is to create a society that ensures these needs are satisfied. Today, global politics is decided by both national governments and transnational corporations, international and supranational organizations, and a number of non-democratic institutions. Some problems concern all of humanity, and because of globalisation we all need to relate to the problems of other parts of the world. However, some of these issues can only be resolved by cooperation across borders.

We the participants of ISFiT 2007, participated in this simulation of World Parliament, where we chose a representative democratically who would represent us & take part in debate with the following voting sequence. During this experiment we discussed the conflict in Sudan & voted on a resolution. It was very interesting to go through an experiment on such a scale regarding Global Governance. This experiment made me re-think on Democracy. It is surely not the best system but it is only good system we have. The possibility of having such a World Parliament is still a question?