05472
Sept. 9, 2005   

WCC chief calls for UN reform  

by Ecumenical News International 

GENEVA — The Rev. Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World Council of Churches (WCC), said the United Nations needs to be reformed so that it can deal better with major world challenges ranging from AIDS to under‑development. 

     Kobia, preparing for a large gathering of international leaders at UN headquarters in New York starting Sept. 14, said an “inclusive approach involving the global South and the global North” is needed in a reformed UN.

     He called for “a reform that empowers and strengthens the UN and achieves better representation, so that the world organization can successfully address the global challenges facing humanity: wars, conflicts, nuclear arms, environmental degradation, AIDS and other diseases, under‑development, extreme poverty and acts of terror.” 

     Kobia made his comments in a Sept. 7 letter to the governments of Britain and China. Britain is the current chair of the G8 group of leading industrialized nations. China is the only member of the G77, a group of 132 developing nations, that has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. 

     The New York summit is being convened to discuss UN reform and the status of the Millennium Development Goals, targets intended to cure of a host of global socio‑economic ills by 2015. About 180 leaders are expected to attend.

     Kobia advocated 100 per cent debt cancellation for poor countries and said all nations must implement the development goals. He warned against human-rights compromises in the name of national security. 

     “If poverty and terrorism are to be eliminated, it is essential that civil and political rights as well as socio‑economic cultural rights of all peoples be realized,” he said.

     Kobia said a condition for any new permanent membership in the UN Security Council “should be a clear and verified status as a non‑nuclear‑weapons state.” 

     He urged the UN to work toward restricting and limiting military force in the framework of international law and the UN Charter.