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We can identify no practical or legal reasons why the IPU should not seek observer status at the UN. But as you say, this would set something of a precedent and the implications would need to be carefully thought through. The only organisations at present in a remotely comparable relationship to the UN are the PLO and the ICRC. Each comes into a category of its own. The PLO ("Palestine") is of course a quasi-national entity. The ICRC (technically speaking a body constituted under Swiss law) performs functions which give it a very particular status in international diplomacy and a very strong case for representation on an observer basis in all the relevant organs of the UN. None of these considerations would apply so conclusively to the IPU.
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In practical terms, observer status for the IPU, if it were granted, would raise its profile at the United Nations by a notch or two. It could be represented in plenary sessions of the General Assembly and in the main Committees in its own right, and would have the right to speak. It would be given certain functional immunities. If it established an office in New York this would be listed in the UN's "blue book". All this would presumably assist the IPU's objective of participating more fully in multilateral discussion of international issues. Observer status would not, however, confer the right to have documents circulated. This right has been granted only to Palestine, by special dispensation.
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5. On the other hand we must also take into account certain less desirable implications. It is reasonable to ask what would be achieved in functional terms by giving the IPU this virtually unprecedented status. would have the right to speak, but what would its representative say? How could the IPU express a view? It could not, of course, in the absence of any mechanism for reaching a common position among 110 national parliaments.
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