This page is background information, last updated in May 2002 and still available for reference. For the latest on the Special Session on Children, please go to the Special Session index.

What is the Inter-Parliamentary Union?

The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, is an influential organization of lawmakers from 100 countries who meet twice a year to exchange experiences from their countries and set goals for important legislation.

The Union was founded in 1899 by William Randal Cremer, a British member of Parliament, and Frédéric Passy, a French member of Parliament. They envisioned the IPU as a clearinghouse of ideas to help foster legislation that would lead to peace. By meeting together as representatives of democracies, Cremer and Passy believed, parliamentarians could arbitrate disputes in international politics, as well as promote free trade and facilitate the signing of treaties between states.

Cremer and Passy's vision turned out to be a success. Since 1899, the IPU has held over 100 Congresses and has helped foster legislation in democracies around the world, including laws on disarmament, economic and social development, prevention of armed coups and the promotion of human rights.

Generally, the IPU organizes regional conferences to promote the sharing of experience, monitors elections and provides technical assistance to functioning parliamentary democracies.

Under the leadership of its current president, Najma Heptulla, deputy chair of the Indian Parliament's upper house, the IPU will be putting the rights of children at the top of their agenda.

The IPU was among the first major international entities to throw their support behind the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Now the organization will take its commitment to children even further. IPU parliamentarians aim to make child-rights standards a litmus test for all legislative activity, from laws pertaining to juvenile justice to the creation of budgets. The Union will ask its member parliaments to use the welfare of children as the basis for drafting legislation, and to make a five-year commitment to making children a priority in legislative activity. This support for child rights could significantly affect the way legislation is framed in parliaments throughout the world.