e-Parliament process
The e-Parliament exists to spread good policy ideas among the democratic parliamentarians of the world, and to help build broad coalitions to implement those ideas.
In order to do this, the e-Parliament Council and Secretariat:
- is building a database of elected legislators from around the world. Currently this database runs to 18,000 members of parliament from 97 countries: countries as diverse as Tuvalu, Russia and Nigeria. These legislators can all be emailed, polled and invited to sign petitions.
- Brings together legislators from different countries for international parliamentary committee hearings. The legislators listen to presentations by experts on particular issues so that the legislators better understand the issues and equip themselves to take concrete action to address them.
- Identifies legislation that could be easily shared among different parliaments for the benefit of humanity and creates policy toolkits so that this legislation can be passed more easily from one parliament to another.
- Convenes legislators together with business leaders, NGOs, academic experts and government officials in roundtables for the rapid expedition of specific policy objectives.
In the future the aim is that the e-Parliament will work on a wide variety of different issues – and these priorities will be established by participating legislators.
For the moment however, the e-Parliament Council has decided to focus on two primary matters of global concern: climate change and the spread of democracy.
With regard to climate change, the e-Parliament Council recognises that it is essential that national legislators act quickly to introduce legislation to combat global warming. To this end, legislators have been polled on their energy priorities. There have also been international parliamentary hearings on energy and ecosystems. And building on keen interest expressed by legislators in the hearings, we have published a Call for Clean Energy Supergrids - networks of high voltage direct current cables which can carry solar, wind and hydro energy from wherever it is most abundant to wherever it needed. This can enable us to make a rapid transition from fossil fuels to a reliable unlimited supply of renewable energy.
With regard to democracy, the e-Parliament believes that many of the world’s disputes could be solved by efficient and transparent democratic government. Introducing accountability, reducing corruption and increasing stakeholder participation throughout the world are therefore key aims. To this end, the e-Parliament has held a hearing on democracy where legislators agreed to help defend the internet as a zone of free speech by launching a Call for e-Freedom: a campaign to free anyone who has been imprisoned for opinions expressed on the internet. At this hearing legislators also agreed to commission a democratic parliaments index ranking the world's parliaments according to a simple set of democratic criteria.
| 
Click to register
