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The World Parliamentary Forum was recently held in Montreal, Canada on 10th August 2016, as part of the week-long World Social Forum.
The event brought together progressive representatives and civil society organisations from local, regional and national parliaments around the world. A delegation from GUE/NGL led by Helmut Scholz MEP attended the forum, and they took part in debates in how best to build a sustainable and inclusive world.
Below is the Final Declaration adopted at the conclusion of the World Parliamentary Forum:
We, World Parliamentary Forum participants gathered in Montreal on August 10,
2016 as part of the World Social Forum, elected representatives from all continents
representing the political formations adhering to the Porto Alegre Charter,
representatives from social movements, engaged citizens, adopt the following
declaration.
We denounce the Canadian state that closed its doors to numerous World Social
Forum participants committed to peace, democracy, social justice and the
environment, including several parliamentarians.
Sixteen years ago, in Porto Alegre in Brazil, the World Social Forum brought together
challenges to neoliberalism and capitalist globalization for the first time on a global
scale. Since then, local, regional and global social forums drive out the lies of
neoliberalism, transmit the voices of social struggles and build alternatives. We
salute the people involved in social movements, progressive political organizations
and local collectives fighting without respite for a peaceful, egalitarian and ecological
global society.
In the year 2000 was also held the first World March of Women, an initiative of the
Quebec women’s movement. The goals of this march are still relevant today: ending
poverty and violence against women. In our struggle for social justice, we favour
economic equality and political party, both within our organizations and in society.
Popular sovereignty will not be achieved without women gaining sovereignty over
their bodies and economic lives.
The lie of austerity and neoliberalism
Despite our struggles and convergence, governments enforce neoliberal policies by
promising access to free market benefits for their people. Neoliberal policies allow
global corporations and the richest 1% to enrich themselves at the expense of the
majority of the population, especially women, youth and racialized people. Social
disengagement primarily affects social and community services delivered by the
work of women, be it paid or unpaid.
On the heels of successive global economic crises, governments have used public
money to bail out the financial markets responsible for economic imbalances while
adopting social austerity measures that stifle populations and increase inequality.
Moreover, austerity hampers the ecological conversion of the economy while
preventing us from fulfilling people’s basic needs.
We reiterate that the public debt crisis is an instrument used by globalized finance
to dominate peoples. To fulfill international creditors’ demands, states are forced to
enact drastic cuts in social spending, privatize public societies and undertake
structural reforms benefiting ruling elites and transnational corporations.
We participants to the World Parliamentary Forum come from former colonies and
Northern countries swindled by financial institutions; we ask for the cancellation of
untenable sovereign debts. We support the political struggle for debt relief at the
institutional level in the south of Europe.
To properly finance public services, it’s time to tackle the tax evasion practiced of
the rich and large corporations. To do so, we are in favour of intergovernmental
institutions that could regulate and sanction fraudulent tax practices.
The challenges of social, environmental and climate justice
The 2015 Paris Conference formalized what ecologists had been saying all along: the
climate challenge our world is facing means we must take steps towards radical
change, right now. However, a change of this scope requires moving beyond our
current capitalist system.
Climate disruptions are already causing massive damage, including the ecological
impoverishment of many territories and repeated meteorological catastrophes, and
Native peoples and poorer countries. Developed countries are historically
responsible for climate change, yet ruling elites – turning inequality into profit –
control states and large economic conglomerates and have no interest in
transforming our technological and economic system.
We believe political parties should seek alliances with social movements throughout
the world to propose a viable alternative to the current system and take the road of
a fair energy transition and affordable energy efficiency strategies for all.
We also believe in reaching binding climate agreements to limit the rise in average
global temperatures to less than 2 degrees Celsius with a target of 1.5 degrees
Celsius.
Big energy or mining projects should be evaluated according to energy transition
aims so we can phase out the carbon economy and honor our obligation to protect
the aquifer, agricultural and cultural heritage of local populations in respect of
Indigenous Peoples’ sovereignty.
We commend the struggle waged against the Energy East pipeline, a fight led by
Indigenous and local communities as well as ecological movements in the Canadian
state. This pipeline is part of a strategy of oil development against the objectives of
reducing greenhouse gas and protecting the environment. Similar projects may be
found throughout the world.
We parliamentarians, left-wing militants, labour activists, and civil society
representatives must unite forces to build global social and environmental justice.
We pledge to support community initiatives to engage in energy transition and
improve access to adequate nutrition for all while strengthening circular and
regional economies.
We stand for popular food sovereignty and promote an agricultural model based on
small farms respectful of biodiversity and the environment. We demand the
exclusion of from the World Trade Organization’s scope of application.
Free trade agreements: towards popular alternatives
One of the key pillars of neoliberal capitalism is the establishment of free trade
agreements between countries to facilitate the trade of goods and services through
abolishing tariffs, social and environmental rules and public support for national
industries. To ensure compliance with free trade agreements, states accept the
establishment of opaque supranational courts. They can settle disputes opposing
governments to investors and multinationals whose commercial rights have
allegedly been violated by national legislation. These multinational courts grant
them enormous sums and prevent states from legislating in favour of social rights
and the environment.
In fact, free trade agreements force states to renounce their capacity to legislate for
the people. Indeed, they prevent the full exercise of popular sovereignty. They bind
people to the interests of financial capital and deepen inequality.
We are opposed to these free trade agreements: CETA, between Canada and the
European Union, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership, the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA) and to free trade
agreements forced upon developing countries. We demand a full debate inclusive of
affected countries’ populations before national parliaments ratify these agreements.
Free trade agreements attempt to invert the hierarchy of rules and establish an
unacceptable supremacy of commercial rights over human rights and local peoples’
welfare. This must stop: it’s essential for us to reach our goals of equity, justice, and
the protection of the environment.
We, progressive and social movement activists, demand transparent commercial
negotiations. We are opposed to free trade agreements that harm people and the
environment; we will work to increase and consolidate alternatives to these
neoliberal policies.
We propose treaties supporting solidarity between peoples and the integration of
social welfare schemes. In terms of international standards, we demand human
rights take precedence and we ask the United Nations to adopt a binding treaty on
businesses and human rights and fully implement the principle of due diligence in
order to keep transnational businesses accountable.
Common struggles for world peace, the defence of democracy and human rights
The contradictions of capitalism and imperialism are ceaselessly driving humanity to
the edge of barbarity.
Latin American experiences to put an end to armed conflicts provide avenues of
solution. Columbia’s conflict resolution process owes much to a mediation process
mindful of humanitarian issues, as has been Cuba’s government.
Despite the establishment of a formal relationship between Cuba and the United
States, we denounce maintaining an economic blockade on Cuba. The normalization
of relations implies quickly and fully lifting this economic embargo enforced by the
United States and the restoration of Guantanamo’s territory to the Cuban people.
We also denounce destabilization efforts against progressive and legitimate
governments. The coup in Brazil underlines the despicable manner by which
oligarchs manipulate democratic institutions to act in their favour: lies and
propaganda.
As the popular government of the Bolivarian republic of Venezuela face the threats
of permanent imperialist attacks and an international media campaign to distort the
Venezuelan reality, we express our support and solidarity to the Bolivarian
revolution just as we support democratic institutions as the expression of popular
sovereignty. We declare our rejection of any kind of external interference into
Venezuela’s internal affairs and demand the respect of the principle of self-determination
of peoples as well as the respect of the sovereign right of the
Venezuelan people to dispose of their own destiny. We also denounce the campaign
of economic sabotage waged by business elites and imperialism which hurts the
Venezuelan people.
We condemn, in the same breath, the attempts of the El Salvador’s most resolute
right-wing sectors and oligarchy – as well as anti-democratic decrees adopted by the
Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice – to create a climate of
political, social and economic instability. We reject any internal and external action
to destabilize the current government and trigger a coup.
A peaceful future for the Middle East – particularly in Iraq and Syria – depends on a
fair, negotiated peace involving all components of society to pave the way towards a
truly democratic solution to armed conflicts and the threat of IS and its allies.
We salute the heroic struggle in Rojava (Western Kurdistan) and Kurds’ struggle for
their liberation, self-determination and identity. We recognize that the experience of
democratic autonomy in Rojava could be used as a model to solve many
ethnonational, religious and secular conflicts in the Middle East and beyond. We
denounce the repressive policies of the Turkish government against Kurds, whose
deputies, mayors, politicians and activists are systematically persecuted. The Turkish
state must immediately put an end to its warmongering policies, revive the peace
process it suspended and commit to a democratic settlement with the Kurdish
movement.
Conflict resolution in this region depends on a negotiated settlement to create a
viable Palestinian state, the end of Israeli military occupation of Arab territories and
the recognition of Palestinians’ fundamental rights, notably the right to return and
inclusive 1.5 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. However, we realize Israel
refuses any negotiated solution, which leads this conflict into an impasse. The
international community, both governments and civil societies, must pressure Israel
to negotiates in good faith.
Furthermore, we are concerned about the criminalization – in Canada and other
countries – of international, nonviolent campaigns in support of Palestine, namely
the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
We affirm that the recognition and guarantee of human rights apply to everyone, no
matter their origin, identity or sexual orientation, race or gender. We support the
fight against homophobia and transphobia and the creation of an international
convention on sexual diversity.
Waves of refugees and migrant people flocked to northern countries on the heels of
conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. The European Union, the United States and
Canada have so far been unable to adequately respond to this humanitarian crisis.
On the issue of migration, we denounce the border fortification of Europe, a clear
breach of our duty to protect people fleeing war. We denounce the construction of a
wall on the United States-Mexico border.
We denounce the current security drift ostracizing entire communities in response
to terrorist acts committed by a few individuals. Protecting populations must not
preclude fundamental rights and legal guarantees: anything less would play into the
hands of the fundamentalists.
We offer our support to Indigenous struggles, particularly in the Canadian state
where we meet, recognizing the continuous oppression suffered by First Nations
since the European conquest.
We believe the only way to end the oppression of Indigenous peoples is through
their full self-determination obtained by negotiations under the auspices of the
nation to nation principle.
We, the progressive and internationalist forces gathered in the World Parliamentary
Forum reiterate again peoples’ right to self-determination, including independence
if they express their wish democratically. Recognizing people’s right to govern
themselves is a both a fundamental right and a solution to many international
armed conflicts.