General Assembly resolution on Interaction between the United Nations,
National Parliaments and the Inter-Parliamentary Union
Geneva, 26 April 2022
Office of the
Secretary General
Dear Madam President,
Dear Mr, President,
The General Assembly of the United Nations is preparing to adopt a new resolution on
interaction between the United Nations, national parliaments and the
Inter-Parliamentary Union in the first part of June (date to be announced in the coming
weeks).
While not legally binding, this resolution provides strong political recognition of the
vision that sees a clear role for parliaments and the IPU in the multilateral system that
is governed by the United Nations.
As per past practice, a draft of the resolution will be introduced for negotiation by the
Permanent Mission of the country holding the IPU presidency (Portugal). A first round
of informal consultations with member States is scheduled to take place on Thursday,
28 April.
As shown in the enclosed document, the draft resolution builds on the agreed
language of Res. 74/304 of September 2020. Some language is streamlined and
simplified to avoid repetition and better highlight key issues or processes. At the same
time, new language is introduced to further ingrain the IPU and parliaments in key UN
processes and to expand the range of issues in which the IPU and parliaments will be
encouraged to engage with.
This year’s interaction resolution comes in the context of the follow up to the UN
Secretary-General’s report on Our Common Agenda, i.e., the 12-point plan of action
that governments agreed to at the UN75 Summit in September 2020. The UN
Secretary-General’s report called, inter alia, for more input from parliaments with
regard to UN processes.
I would like to encourage your parliament to review this text closely and to share any
feedback you may have with your country’s Permanent Mission to the UN in
New York. It would also be most useful if you could ask your Foreign Ministry and
Permanent Mission in New York to join the list of sponsors of the resolution so that
once again we can count on a strong show of support for the IPU and parliaments
from the UN General Assembly.
I thank you for your kind consideration.
Yours sincerely,
Martin Chungong
Secretary General