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How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!
Psalm 133:1
The World Council of Churches shares with the United Nations (UN) a fundamental commitment to cooperation across boundaries and lines of division, as well as shared purposes for peace, human rights, justice, protection of the environment, and sustainable development.
At a time in history when the world faces a convergence of unprecedented crises, and when multilateral cooperation has never been more urgently needed to address these threats, the nations of the world seem locked in conflict and division.
There is a deep deficit of trust in international institutions and among members of the international community, reflected in the proliferation of division, confrontation and conflict, and undermining humanity’s collective capacity to respond to current and future global challenges.
Accordingly, the Executive Committee of the World Council of Churches (WCC), meeting in Cyprus on 21-26 November 2024, affirms the intent of the UN Summit of the Future, convened in New York on 22-23 September 2024, to adapt international cooperation to the realities of today and the challenges of tomorrow, and to re-envision a multilateralism that is able to address global challenges, is more representative of today’s world, and draws on the engagement and expertise of governments, civil society and other key partners.
Inevitably, that ambition is imperfectly realized in the resulting Pact for the Future adopted at the Summit in September, which reads in large part as a catalogue of all the previous commitments solemnly made but substantially unfulfilled.
Nevertheless, the Executive Committee affirms the main directions of the Pact for the Future, and issues an urgent appeal for all States to recommit to multilateral cooperation in order to address the pressing global challenges that threaten all our communities, and our common home.
We urge all nations to recall the horrors against the repetition of which international humanitarian and human rights law were developed to guard, and to recommit to respect for the rule of law as the best defence against such violations.
We welcome the more concrete commitments to reform of the UN Security Council, as an important means of making the UN more fit for todays’ purposes, and for restoring the UN’s credibility.
We welcome also the increased recognition of and focus on the role of young people and the international community’s responsibility to future generations, and to the protection of human beings in the context of new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence.
The Executive Committee:
Calls on all member churches and ecumenical partners to engage with their governments to underscore the necessity of multilateral cooperation in a time of converging global crises of conflict, environmental crisis, and economic injustice.
Requests the general secretary to support and equip member churches and ecumenical partners to be effective advocates for a reinvigorated multilateralism and global cooperation, against the tide of division, competition and confrontation.
