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In a statement issued on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day on 10 December, the WCC Commission of the Churches on International Affairs expresses deep concern over the many challenges that still remain in securing human dignity and rights for all.

Reflections from the International Conference on Peace and Reunification on the Korean Peninsula in Arnoldshain, Germany

Adebayo Anthony Kehinde leads an African group supporting ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Its interfaith campaign is especially significant on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombings in Japan.

In the wake of recent crisis with the refugees in Europe, it is “absolutely and critically necessary that all European states take their proper responsibility in terms of reception and support for people seeking refuge, safety and a better future for themselves and their families. This cannot be left only to the states where they enter first,” says the WCC general secretary.

Seventy years after nuclear fireballs exploded over two Japanese cities, an ecumenical group of pilgrims has come to Hiroshima to listen to those who survived and renew the struggle against their own countries’ continued reliance on nuclear weapons.

Church leaders from seven countries currently making historic choices for or against outlawing nuclear weapons will embark on a pilgrimage in early August to the two Japanese cities that were decimated by atomic bombs 70 years ago.

Expressing shock at the killings in Kuwait, Tunisia and France that took place on 26 June, the WCC acting general secretary Georges Lemopoulos said, “I grieve with those who have lost loved ones, and those who have been injured as a result of these appalling acts, which have marred the month of Ramadan, sacred to Muslims everywhere.”

Meeting from 17 to 24 June, the newly reconstituted Commission on Faith and Order of the WCC has begun to define its principal trajectories for ecumenical study and common activity from 2015 until the next WCC Assembly in 2020.

Four weeks of negotiations on nuclear weapons came to a close on Friday 22 May, as the Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ended without a formal agreement. Despite the outcome, a bright new prospect towards a world without nuclear weapons has emerged in the form of a Humanitarian Pledge, now endorsed by 107 states, which promises “to fill the legal gap for the prohibition and elimination of nuclear weapons”.

“Nuclear weapons are incompatible with the values upheld by our respective faith traditions”, representatives of some 50 Christian, Buddhist, Muslim and Jewish organizations said on 1 May. The inter-religious statement came in a joint call to the 191 governments participating in the world’s largest disarmament treaty. The call, co-sponsored by the WCC, was made during civil society presentations to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in New York City.

Amidst intimidation, illegal arrests, disappearances, torture and killings in Tanah Papua resulting from tensions between the Indonesian authorities and the Papuan pro-liberation groups, churches seek justice, peace, dignity and security for the Papuans.

Should robots make life and death decisions? Religious leaders are asked to tell governments “Never”.

The WCC mourns the death of Leopoldo J. Niilus, former director of the WCC’s Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA), renowned lawyer, peace negotiator and author of several writings on human rights and international affairs.

A court decision in the Dominican Republic annulling the citizenship of an estimated 200,000 Dominicans of Haitian ancestry has been strongly criticized by church leaders, including the presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

The WCC Executive Committee has expressed deep concern over recent developments in the United States following the Grand Jury’s decision not to indict officer Darren Wilson in the killing of Michael Brown.

Members of the WCC's Ecumenical Disability Advocates Network met in the Netherlands to develop a new statement with the working title "Gift of Being: Called to be a Church of All and for All". The new document is founded on the premise that persons with disabilities experience marginalization both in societies and in the church communities themselves.

At the Central Committee meeting of the WCC, leadership of the Council’s consultative bodies was announced. These bodies will steer through the work of the WCC in accomplishing the call from its 10th Assembly to engage in a “pilgrimage of justice and peace”. The WCC assembly was held in the Republic of Korea in 2013.

Churches in the United States, including member churches of the WCC, have called on the Obama administration to open up a high-level dialogue with Cuba aimed at normalizing relations between the two countries.

Father Ioan Sauca of the Romanian Orthodox Church and Peter Prove, a Lutheran lawyer and international affairs expert from Australia, have been named to key staff positions in the WCC.

The WCC has expressed “great concern” over the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) judgment in the case of Perinçek v. Switzerland, recalling that the Swiss National Council and the Federal Tribunal in the past have clearly recognized the Armenian genocide as a historical fact.