Letter to H.E. Sir Emyr Jones Parry, Ambassador of the United Kingdom to the UN
and H.E. Mr Wang Guangya, Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to the
UN, 7 September, 2005


Your Excellency,

In two weeks' time, the United Nations World Summit will take place. The
event will decide which direction the United Nations will take both in content
and in form. The World Council of Churches (WCC) has earlier expressed its
appreciation for and commented in detail on the reports written in preparation
for this Summit.

The WCC will now follow closely the negotiations on the Outcome Document
and will take the opportunity to share its orientations with you, who are in the
process of addressing the work of strengthening the UN, setting clearer priorities
and mobilizing political will to fulfill its tasks.

The World Council of Churches' considerations on international affairs are
based on ethical and theological reflections with our 347 member churches world-
wide. The concerns raised in our reflection process are closely linked to the UN
agenda. Historically, the WCC and the UN have shared goals relating to justice
and peace, eradication of poverty and the promotion and defence of human rights
and human dignity.

The WCC calls for:

1. bringing together the concerns of development and security. By seeking a common
and inclusive approach involving the global South and the global North,
there is a basis for moving towards a reformed United Nations;

2. a reform that empowers and strengthens the UN and achieves better representation
so that the world organization can successfully address the global
challenges facing humanity: wars, conflicts, nuclear arms, environmental degradation,
AIDS and other diseases, under-development, extreme poverty and
acts of terror;

3. a clear understanding that people in extraordinary peril have a right to protection
and that if their own governments cannot or will not provide such protection,
then the international community has the responsibility to try to provide
it;

4. all countries to honour the implementation of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs), particularly in implementing Goal Eight: to "develop a global
partnership for development";

5. 100 percent debt cancellation for poor countries and an increase of Official
Development Assistance, ODA, to the UN recommended level of 0.7.

6. full compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT); the State
Parties to honour explicitly and comply fully with their commitments to disarmament;
and accession of the Non State Parties to the Treaty. A condition
for any new permanent membership in the Security Council should be a clear
and verified status as a non-nuclear-weapon state;

7. the UN to maintain its responsibility to restrict and limit military force in
the framework of international law and as reflected in the UN Charter, and
not give room for the possibility of pre-emptive military action based on article
51;

8. human rights not be compromised in the name of national security. If poverty
and terrorism are to be eliminated, it is essential that civil and political
rights as well as socio-economic cultural rights of all peoples be realized;

9. the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention
on Climate Change and the negotiations for the second commitment period.
The WCC reiterates the need to go beyond technical changes in areas of energy,
transport and economic policy, for a fundamental reorientation of the socioeconomic
structures that are at the origins of the climate change phenomenon.

10. On behalf of the World Council of Churches, please allow me to express my
support for your work at the United Nations and my wishes for wisdom in
the very important process of building conditions for the UN to work for a
safer and better world for all.

Yours sincerely,

Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia
General Secretary