As the world reaches what UN secretary-general António Guterres has termed “an inflection point” in addressing major, converging crises, the World Council of Churches (WCC) is intensifying its close interactions with the United Nations, key UN agencies, and partner non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
In Tahiti, an ecumenical delegation was told about the need for re-inscription of French Polynesia (Maohi Nui) on the United Nations list of countries to be decolonized.
Justice should not be secondary to peace, and both should go together, according to Dr Navanethem Pillay, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. She made her comments in an encounter with the Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, the general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC).
âNo state should take away the right of its citizens to debate a law that affects them gravely. Therefore, there is a growing need of dialogue on the blasphemy law and its negative impacts on religious minorities in Pakistan,â said I.A. Rehman, veteran human rights activist and director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a side event at the United Nationâs Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland.
In a public hearing at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, church activists from the Philippines criticized the Aquino government for not being able to improve the situation regarding human rights violations, citing an increased number of victims of extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, as well as evictions in the country. Â
The Churches' Commission on International Affairs (CCIA) for the World Council of Churches (WCC) is meeting in Tirana, Albania from 2 through 8 October 2010 at the St Vlash Theological Academy in Durrës, Albania. The CCIA dates from 1946 and provides an ecumenical witness on issues and conflicts of global importance.
Representatives from churches, ecumenical organizations and civil society organizations from around the world will gather in Geneva from 27 September to 1 October 2010 for the sixth United Nations Advocacy Week (UNAW), an annual event organized by the Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) of the World Council of Churches (WCC).
No doubt the global financial crisis is and will continue impacting negatively all regions of the world, but according to an advisory body of the World Council of Churches (WCC) it also represents an opportunity to deeply transform the international financial system for good.
Some forty-five religious, interfaith, and value-based organizations from five continents agreed to form a coalition to advance a "United Nations Decade for Inter-religious and Intercultural Dialogue, Understanding, and Cooperation for Peace." Coalition members expressed the hope that the UN Sixty-Fourth General Assembly, which will begin its deliberations in September 2009, will approve a resolution establishing such a decade from 2011-2020.
