Towards an Evidence-Based Arms Control and Disarmament - Episode 2

Ms Ashley Müller: Welcome to Episode 2, of this mini-series on evidence-based arms control and disarmament, I’m your host Ashley Müller with the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and in this episode we speak with Laurence Marzal, Programme Officer at the Inter-Parliamentary Union will discuss the role of Parliaments in arms control and disarmament 

Ms Ashley Müller: Laurence Marzal, you are a Programme Officer at the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the global organisation of national parliaments, one of the oldest international organisations, working for peace, democracy, human rights, gender equality, youth empowerment and sustainable development through political dialogue and cooperation parliamentary. How can you summarise the roles that national parliaments can play in the field of arms control and disarmament? And how important is fact-based evidence for parliamentary action implemented?

Laurence Marzal: Parliaments have the responsibility to legislate at a national level, to approve the ratification of international treaties, to hold governments accountable. And to stimulate public debates and raise awareness. This is valid for all situations, including for arms control and disarmament treaties. And in order to perform these roles, the best way, Parliaments have to base themselves on facts and evidence, this is crucial. And this is also a matter of transparency and accountability for them. So at the beginning of the process, parliamentarians will have to gather evidence, so that it makes sure that treaties are really important for the people and that they will positively affect their life, that they can help development and sustainable security. Because this is what people want, and the MPs, the parliamentarians, they are representing the people, though they are shaping the life these people want and the future they want. Through this evidence, they'll be able to advocate at Parliament level just to broaden the importance of the treaty in Parliament and also go to the government and request that suitable legislation is submitted to Parliament. Then comes the moment of lawmaking. And again, the evidence is crucial there because it will help get a sense of the impact of the legislation Parliament's will have to pass and to the impact on the people and the impact also on the society as itself. And that will trigger anyway some amendments to the legislation in the review. And finally, we have the important role of oversight. And when overseeing again, Parliament's will need evidence and facts just to base themselves on and make sure that they were able to hold the government accountable, that they can get information either from citizen reports or expert reports or data or any kind of report that would help them ask the right questions to relevant officials and Ministers and make them take the necessary actions.

Ms Ashley Müller: That’s all we have now for this episode. Thank you to Laurence Marzal for joining us for this mini-series. Click the next button to listen to Episode 3 where we discuss Small Arms and Light Weapons. In the meantime, don’t forget to follow us Spotify or iTunes or subscribe to us on your favourite podcast player and follow us across all of our social media channels.

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