4. Members’ Activities

Argentine legislator Fernando Iglesias, co-chair of the World Federation Movement International Office (WFM), proposed the establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly as a concrete action to make the United Nations a more democratic organization. President Seishiro Eto, indicated that to achieve world peace the Diet of Japan created the Parliamentary Committee for World Federation on as early as December 20, 1949. Chairman of the House of Representatives Komakichi Matsuoka was appointed as Chairman and Member of the House of Councilors Kotaro Tanaka as Vice-Chairman by a group of 104 bipartisan members of the Diet. He explained that about 100 members of bipartisan members have joined the Parliamentary Committee which aims at realizing the World Federation by building democratic governance.

José Manuel Ramos-Horta is an East Timorese politician who was the President of Timor-Leste from 20 May 2007 to 20 May 2012. Previously he was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2002 to 2006 and Prime Minister from 2006 to 2007. He is a co-recipient of the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize along with Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo, for working “towards a just and peaceful solution to the conflict in East Timor”.

Mr. Ken Inoue and Professor Naoko Kumagai of GPAJ along its president, Sukehiro Hasegawa, participated in the Forum workshop which was opened by former President Jose Ramos-Horta.

German Wolfgang Pape, a former member of the European Union Commission who once worked in Japan as a staff member of the European Union Commission, advocates building of a global governance structure that shares the global culture and values. By advancing omnilateralism, we can first open up the current still mainly western-inspired system of global governance to cultures and good practices of non-Western origin. Secondly, the multilateral system based primarily state actors needs to open up itself to non-state actors. This new system should embrace civil society and encompass other influential trans-border non-state actors such as the on-line giants of GAFAM (Google、Amazon、Facebook、Apple、Microsoft).

Visiting Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai called upon Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and other world leaders to promote more the empowerment of women through education and financial support.

Yamazaki suggests three shifts in the Japanese co-operation approach: (1) provision of advisory policy services to meet emerging needs of middle income countries (MICs); (2) an integrated approach to new MICs which are still Least Developed Countries (LDCs), recognizing that their development gains are still fragile and vulnerable to shocks; and (3) sharing of Japanese experience with countries still in the “demographic bonus” period to prepare for a future graying population, all with an aim to institutionalizing their social policy, laws and practices.

At the conference held on “the Future of the United Nations” at JGU, GPAJ President Hasegawa made a keynote speech on the implications of the Meiji Restoration for the future of the United Nations.

Virendra Dayal, former Chef de Cabinet to the UN Secretary General said, “The UN must address many challenges faced by the world, including forced displacement, hunger, inequality, trade disputes, increasing debt burden and danger to media freedom,” while former UN Special Representative Hasegawa spoke about the significance of Gandhian non-violence and Meiji Revolution in Japan and recommended the re-composition of the Security Council.

Chef de Cabinet David Chikvaidze of United Nations Office in Geneva discussed and agreed to hold the second Geneva Dialogue between Asian Scholars and senior officials of UN and International Organizations on September 2-4, 2019 in a meeting held with Executive Director for Academic Exchange of UN Association of Japan and Director of ACUNS Liaison Office in Tokyo Sukehiro Hasegawa. Please click here to see the report of the Geneva Dialogue held last year.

Professor Vesselin Popovski, Vice Dean, Law School of the O.P. Jindal Global University and Former UN Official, moderated a lively discussion participated by Dr. Raj Kumar, Founding Vice Chancellor of the O.P. Jindal Global University who explained geopolitical change and the importance of rule of law in realizing sustainable peace and development.