Activities of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in this broad field are focused on issues of special interest to the world parliamentary community at present.

This fact is often reflected in the choice of subjects for statutory Assembly of the Union, which have recently addressed, for example, such diverse subjects as dialogue among civilisations, educational and cultural policies and bioethics.

Specialized meetings, organized by the Union on a regular basis, often deal with similar subjects. Two recent examples of thematic Conferences of this sort were the Asia and Pacific Inter-Parliamentary Conference on "Science and technology for regional sustainable development" held in Tokyo in June 1994, and the Inter-Parliamentary Conference on "Education, science, culture and communication on the threshold of the 21st Century" organized jointly by the IPU and UNESCO in Paris in June 1996.