wfn.org | Title: WCC Debt campaigners propose strategies to revitalise

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches
Update 03-31
For Immediate Use
9 July 2003

Debt campaigners propose strategies to revitalise the debt movement

Cf. WCC press release, pr-03-24, 27 June 2003

A range of strategies and concrete actions proposed in the framework of a
reaffirmation of unity in fighting for debt cancellation were the main
results of a World Council of Churches (WCC) workshop that addressed debt
campaign divisions. 

The more high profile proposals - intended to revitalise the debt movement -
were to conduct processes of debt auditing to advance the issue of
illegitimate debt and ecological debt, and to consider the possibility of a
World Commission on Foreign Debt and Audit. 

In line with this proposal, international laws and legal mechanisms to
address illegitimate debt and ecological debt will be explored. This would
include undertaking a collective study and publication of case studies on
illegitimate and odious debts.

While the participants did not discard the possibility of bringing a case to
the International Court of Justice regarding illegitimate and odious debts,
they also demanded the cancellation of Iraq's odious debt and reparations for
the Iraqi people through their legitimately constituted government. 

"The objectives of the workshop were met and the participants reaffirmed
their unity in fighting for debt cancellation", says Rogate Mshana, WCC
programme executive for economic justice. "It was the first time that debt
cancellation campaigners in the North acknowledged the need to fight for the
right of people to repudiate illegitimate debt", he adds. 

The workshop, "Illegitimate debt and arbitration", took place from June 30 to
July 2, 2003 in the Ecumenical Centre, Geneva, and brought together about 30
debt cancellation activists from various campaigns and movements devoted to
eradicating the external debt problem of poor countries. 

"We have to forge common understanding and unity within the debt movement and
between debt, trade, environmental movements and the global justice movement
as a whole so that we may all work together for the cancellation of
illegitimate debts and the building of a more just, life-affirming global
economic system", the workshop's final statement, "A Call to Action", says.

The participants in the workshop also explored the main approaches to the
debt problem - illegitimacy, ecological debt and the Fair and Transparent
Arbitration Process - as well as the relationships and linkages between them.
"Justice is a common thread that runs through all three approaches to resolve
the debt problem", they agreed. 

In evaluating the different approaches, participants highlighted the concept
of ecological debt as "an empowering and liberating framework for peoples in
the South in helping to change mindsets from Southern countries/peoples as
debtors to Southern countries/peoples as creditors and in recognising
environmental concerns and the plunder of Southern resources by the North
since colonial times". 

But they also agreed on the necessity of more study and research on the
issue. Therefore, the WCC will facilitate a North/South consultation on
ecological debt in 2004. The event and the process leading to it are intended
to consolidate a Southern Peoples Ecological Debt Creditors Alliance, and to
create a European Network for the Recognition and Restitution of Social and
Ecological Debts. 

For further information, please contact the Media Relations Office,  
tel: +41 (0)22 791 64 21 / 61 53

**********

The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches, now 342, 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, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general secretary
Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

World Council of Churches
Media Relations Office
Tel: (41 22) 791 6153 / 791 6421
Fax: (41 22) 798 1346
E-mail: media@wcc-coe.org 
Web: www.wcc-coe.org 

PO Box 2100
1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland