ABSTRACT
Parliaments were conceived to function as the sturdy bridge between citizens on one side, and on the other side the governments which actually administer a country. According to constitutional blueprints, parliaments should exercise that function also in the realm of the external relations of a country. Parliaments would therefore stand at the top in the hierarchy of state institutions. They would stand for the collective of citizens that became the new sovereign by replacing kings and princes. Parliaments are dominated by the executive branch. The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) provides such a forum for the international activities of parliamentarians. The IPU thus deals with the working conditions of parliamentarians mainly and not very much with the foreign policy issues these parliamentarians have to address. Other more consequential venues for parliamentarians have come to exist much later. Immediately after World War II, the most prominent addition was the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
