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In an ecumenical harvest, a spate of European and North American church bodies are entering agreements recognizing each other’s baptisms.

Five of the world’s major arms exporters are among a group of mostly European countries ratifying the world’s first Arms Trade Treaty today, 2 April, a year after the treaty was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.

An “inter-generational dialogue on faith, culture, HIV and sexual reproductive health and rights” was initiated on 11 March in New York City by the World YWCA in partnership with the WCC and other international organizations. The dialogue was organized as a side event at the United Nations 58th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women.

Public health and human rights remain woefully unprotected from nuclear disasters. This is a key assessment of a “Human Rights and Natural Disasters” workshop, three years after the Fukushima disaster and 30 years since Chernobyl. The workshop was hosted by the WCC on 28 February in Geneva, Switzerland

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.

“The immediate end of the suffering of the people in Syria must now be the focus for all parties in the Geneva 2 talks,” WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit said in a meeting today, 14 February in Geneva with members of the Syrian opposition. And “this includes all parties in the conflict,” he added.

Strong concerns were expressed by the WCC Executive Committee over the increasing number of internally displaced persons and the on-going conflict in South Sudan in statements adopted by the committee on 12 February, during its meeting in Bossey, Switzerland.

The WCC Executive Committee has condemned the use of drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles saying that they pose “serious threats to humanity” and the “right to life” while setting “dangerous precedents in inter-state relations”.

“As faith communities and religious leaders, we are obliged constantly to remind people about the obligation and responsibility to choose peace through dialogue,” said Bartholomew, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.

The WCC Executive Committee, currently meeting in Switzerland, is working to translate the mandate of the WCC 10th Assembly into strategic plans and visible actions, focusing on the churches’ efforts toward a “pilgrimage for justice and peace”.

Nearly one hundred representatives of the German member churches of the WCC met from 16 to 18 January at the Evangelical Academy of Loccum in order to share their experiences from the WCC 10th Assembly and to discuss how they would continue their way together on their pilgrimage of justice and peace.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity has been globally celebrated this year with prayers, reflections, ecumenical services and events focusing on Paul’s question in Corinthians 1 “Has Christ been divided?” a theme for this year’s prayer materials, prepared by the Canadian churches.

The WCC general secretary, following a session on climate change at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, stressed the “significant role of financial policy-making by the states in addressing climate change.”

While the Geneva 2 talks for peace in Syria are scheduled to begin in Switzerland today, 22 January, churches from around the world continue to call for visible actions to be taken to put an end to the conflict in Syria, leading the way towards justice, peace and stability.

In a talk organized by the Archives of the WCC, Elisabeth Baumgartner, a Swiss lawyer and head of the project “Dealing with the Past” at the Swiss Peace Foundation (swisspeace), stressed the importance of archives and documentation in dealing with the past, which she said is pertinent to the institutional and informal mechanisms seeking justice, reconciliation and conflict resolution.

A statement from churches around the world urging an end to the armed conflict in Syria, ahead of the Geneva 2 talks scheduled to take place on 22 January was presented to Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations-Arab League joint representative for Syria, by the WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit today in Geneva, 20 January.

With the Geneva 2 talks on Syria scheduled for 22 January, some 30 church leaders from Syria and around the world gathered a week ahead of time at the headquarters of the WCC in Geneva, Switzerland, and called for substantial action be taken at the talks to end the armed conflict.

At the Second United Nations Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights, human rights defenders from Colombia and Guatemala exposed degrading environmental, ecological, economic and social impacts on indigenous communities. These impacts are consequences of the projects run by multinational companies in a number of countries.

Three human rights activists from indigenous communities in Guatemala and Colombia will present cases highlighting human rights violations by multinational corporations in their countries, including instances of land grabbing, at the Second United Nations Annual Forum on Business and Human Rights.

The WCC general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit has welcomed the interim agreement between Iran and six world powers reached in Geneva, Switzerland on 24 November. Tveit prayed for the agreement to become “a sign of hope in a region where many yearn for peace.”