wfn.org | WCC addresses UN commission

[mr@wcc-coe.org]

World Council of Churches
Press Release
For Immediate Use
11 April 1997

PUT PEOPLE AND ENVIRONMENT FIRST, WCC TELLS UN COMMISSION ON
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

*All economic systems must be tested from the perspective of
their effect on the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized,* a
World Council of Churches (WCC) representative has told the fifth
session of the UN Commission on Sustainable Development currently
meeting in New York.

However, development consultant Shanti Sachtanantam from Sri
Lanka said, current economic approaches are based  *on unlimited 
economic growth and a continuous and unregulated expansion of
production and consumption for the world's rich*.
  
Speaking on behalf of the World Council of Churches'
International Affairs Commission, Sachtanantam said claims that
this approach amounts to *sustainable development* are wrong
because it fails to challenge *dynamics which are increasing the
gap between the rich and the poor... and causing environmental
destruction*.

For the WCC, sustainable community *implies the nurturing of
equitable relationships both within the human family and also
between humans and the rest of the ecological community - in
other words,  justice within the whole of God's creation*, she
explained.

WCC member churches around the world are *intensely involved* in
people's everyday struggles. Thus the Council is well aware of
the deletorious effects of the *excesses of globalization* on
*sustainable community*, Sachtanantam said, citing examples of
export tobacco cultivation in Sri Lanka, resource extraction from
Indigenous Peoples' lands, and the effects of climate change on
poorer developing nations, low-lying states and future
generations.

Current globalization is characterized by an increasing
concentration of power, Sachtanantam suggested. *Who is to look
after the people's interests?*, she asked, adding that  the WCC
is particularly worried about the emerging power of the World
Trade Organization, where decision-making *is highly secretive,
non-participatory, and dominated by the interests of
transnational corporations. It is not just civil society... but
even many parts of national governments [which] are kept in the
dark.*  WTO proceedings must be made transparent and inclusive,
allowing full government and civil society/NGO participation, she
insisted.

Concluding her intervention, the WCC spokesperson urged the UN
Commission  to adopt *specific principles, indicators and
assessment procedures to measure progress* on sustainable
community, including an *Earth Summit III in 2002", to promote
the immediate adoption of the UN Draft Declaration on the Rights
of Indigenous Peoples, and to *recommend that a high-level
segment of the Economic and Social Council be devoted to the
theme of globalization and sustainability*.

The full text of Ms Sachanantam's intervention (in English) is
available on request.

**********
The World Council of Churches is a fellowship of churches, now
332, in more than 100 countries in all continents from virtually
all Christian traditions.  The Roman Catholic Church is not a
member church but works cooperatively with the WCC.  The highest
governing body is the Assembly, which meets approximately every
seven years.  The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in
Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Its staff is headed by general secretary
Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.