The BRICS Parliamentary Forum as a viable parliamentary diplomacy platform: an analysis of the 9th BRICS Parliamentary Forum outcomes

Abstract

The objective of this policy brief, therefore, is to present three of the thematic outcomes and critically assess whether parliamentary diplomacy was harnessed in a more meaningful and impactful way. Parliamentary oversight over the workings and decisions of multilateral organisations, continental and regional bodies, such as the United Nations (UN), the African Union (AU), the Southern African Development Cooperation (SADC) and others, is left mostly to national parliaments, which are supposed to exercise democratic scrutiny over what their national governments are doing at a multilateral level. This begs the question as to whether a multinational parliamentary body, such as the BPF, would be able to establish global legislative measures and implement scrutiny over not just global politics, but the national governments of their members states in the future.