It is time to reinvigorate the UN General Assembly so that it can exercise a more decisive role in peace-making and peace-keeping, consistent with the will of the international community.

A World Parliamentary Assembly functioning outside the United Nations, or a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly set up as a subsidiary body of the General Assembly pursuant to article 22 of the UN Charter, could start initially as a consultative body and gradually develop into a legislative assembly.

Democracy entails a correlation between the public interest as expressed by a majority of the population and the governmental policies that affect them. The term encompasses various manifestations, including direct, participatory and representative democracy, but Governments must be responsive to people and not to special interests such as the military-industrial complex, financial bankers and transnational corporations. Democracy is inclusive and does not privilege an anthropological aristocracy.

The Independent Expert is persuaded that recognition of peace as a human right will promote a democratic and equitable international order and that national and international democratization will reduce conflict, since peoples want peace. It is Governments that stumble into war.

You should not be subjected to the pressures, the intimidation, whether by Government or by the private sector, which would force you into self-censorship.

The United Nations is the best hope to spare humanity from the barbarity of war, from the senseless death, destruction and dislocation it brings about.

Peace is not the silence of cemeteries, but the song of social justice.