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A United Nations Parliamentary Assembly is a proposed addition to the United Nations System that would allow for participation of member nations' legislators and, eventually, direct election of United Nations parliament members by citizens worldwide. The idea was raised at the League of Nations founding in the 1920s and again following the end of World War II in 1945, but remained dormant throughout the Cold War. In the 1990s and 2000s, the rise of global trade and the power of world organizations that govern it led to calls for a parliamentary assembly to scrutinize their activity. The International Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly was formed in 2007 to coordinate pro-UNPA efforts. Supporters have set forth possible UNPA implementations, including promulgation of a new treaty; creation of a UNPA as a subsidiary body of the UN General Assembly; and evolution of a UNPA from the Inter-Parliamentary Union or another nongovernmental organization. Several proposals for apportionment of votes have been raised to address disparities in UN members' population and economic power. CEUNPA advocates initially giving the UNPA advisory powers and gradually increasing its authority over the UN system. Opponents cite issues such as funding, voter turnout, and undemocratic UN member nations as reasons for abandoning the project altogether. (more...)

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• ... that the English folkloric story Dick Whittington and His Cat is based on the real Richard Whittington, but there is no historical evidence that he ever had a cat?
• ... that one of the factors threatening the Canarian Houbara is disturbance by truffle collectors?
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• ... that although his crew were merely taking geological observations, the British Government believed Cyrille Pierre Théodore Laplace had claimed New Zealand for France?
  
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• Ruins of an ancient Wari city are discovered in northern Peru.
• ASEAN meets in Jakarta, Indonesia, to launch the ASEAN Charter, which groups its 10 member states into a legal entity.
• The House of Representatives of Thailand selects Abhisit Vejjajiva of the Democrat Party as the country's new Prime Minister.
• Bernard Madoff is arrested by the FBI in the United States, and charged with defrauding investors in a US$50 billion Ponzi scheme.
• Switzerland becomes the 25th European country to join the Schengen Agreement, whereby cross-border passport checks (pictured) will be abolished.
• The Channel Island of Sark, a British crown dependency, holds its first fully democratic elections under a new constitutional arrangement, becoming the last European territory to abolish feudalism.
• Anti-police riots break out in Athens and spread to several cities across Greece.
• Ireland issues an international recall of its pork products following the discovery of contaminated pig feed.
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December 18: Republic Day in Niger (1958)

• 218 BC – The Carthaginian forces of Hannibal defeated the Roman Republic at the Battle of the Trebia, the first major battle of the Second Punic War, along the Trebbia River in present-day Italy.
• 1271 – Mongol ruler Kublai Khan (pictured) established the Yuan Dynasty in present-day Mongolia and China.
• 1892 – The first performance of the fairy tale-ballet The Nutcracker, composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and based on the story by E. T. A. Hoffmann, was held at the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
• 1966 – Epimetheus, one of the moons of Saturn, was discovered, but was mistaken as Janus. It took 12 years to determine that they are two distinct objects sharing the same orbit.
• 1987 – Programmer Larry Wall released the first version of the programming language Perl via the comp.sources.misc newsgroup.

• More events: December 17 – December 18 – December 19

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