A/HRC/37/63 authenticity of the expression of public will in the absence of threats of or the use of force. Long-standing historical links to a territory or region, religious links to sacred sites, the consciousness of the heritage of prior generations, as well as a subjective identification with a territory, must be given due weight. 52. Agreements with persons who are not properly authorized to represent the populations concerned and a fortiori agreements with puppet representatives are invalid. In the absence of a process of good-faith negotiation or plebiscites, there is a danger of armed revolt. A consistent pattern of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights against a population negates the legitimacy of the exercise of governmental power. In case of unrest, dialogue must first be engaged in the hope of redressing grievances. States may not first provoke the population by committing grave human rights abuses and then invoke the right of self-defence in justification of the use of force against them. That would violate the principle of estoppel. No doctrine, not that of territorial integrity nor that of selfdetermination, justifies massacres; neither doctrine can derogate from the right to life. Norms are not mathematics and must be applied with flexibility and a sense for proportionality in order to reduce and prevent chaos and death. 53. Secession presupposes the capacity of a territory to emerge as a functioning member of the international community. In this context, the four statehood criteria of the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States are relevant: a permanent population; a defined territory; government; and the capacity to enter into relations with other States. The size of the population concerned and the economic viability of the territory are also relevant. A democratic form of government that respects human rights and the rule of law strengthens the entitlement. The recognition of a new State entity by other States is desirable but it has a declaratory, not a constitutive effect. 54. When a multi-ethnic and/or multi-religious State entity is broken up, and the resulting new State entities are also multi-ethnic or multi-religious and continue to suffer from the old animosities and violence, the same principle of secession can be applied. If a piece of the whole can be separated from the whole, then a piece of the piece can also be separated under the same rules of law and logic. The main goal is to arrive at a world order in which States observe human rights and the rule of law internally and live in peaceful relations with other States. E. World parliamentary assembly in consultative status with the General Assembly 55. For many decades, the idea of a world parliamentary assembly19 or a United Nations parliamentary assembly has been under discussion. The idea is to address democracy deficits by giving expression to global public opinion and including citizens in global decision-making through elected officials. Such an assembly could be set up by a vote of the General Assembly under Article 22 of the Charter, or it could be created on the basis of a new international treaty between Governments, followed by an agreement linking it to the United Nations. Neither mechanism requires Charter reform. Former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali has been an advocate of such an assembly. In a comment published at Open Democracy, Mr. Boutros-Ghali made the case for the establishment of a parliamentary assembly at the United Nations. In order to solve global crises more effectively, a direct democratic connection between the world’s citizens and the world’s governance needs to be created. He welcomed the expansion of democracy at the national level throughout the world, observing that emerging States are increasingly included in 19 See A/68/284; Joseph E. Schwartzberg, Creating a World Parliamentary Assembly: An Evolutionary Journey, (Berlin, Committee for a Democratic United Nations, 2012); and Richard Falk and Andrew L. Strauss, “Toward global parliament”, Foreign Affairs, 2001. 15