Earth Charter Highlights Environmental
Ethics
PARIS, France, March 14, 2000 (ENS) - The Earth Charter, a
document creating an unprecedented ethical and moral framework to
guide the conduct of people and nations to each other and the Earth,
was finalized today in Paris.
Earth from space (Photo courtesy National Aeronautics and
Space Administration)
More than 100,000 people in 51
countries and 25 global leaders in environment, business, politics,
religion and education took part in creating the Earth Charter.
The Earth Charter Commission met in Paris March 12 through 14 to
finalize the Earth Charter document which links material progress
with moral progress and seeks to shape global responsibility for the
world's deeply rooted social, economic and environmental problems.
The first four guiding principles of the Earth Charter are to:
- Respect Earth and life in all its diversity
- Care for life with understanding, love and compassion
- Build societies that are free, just, participatory,
sustainable and peaceful
- Secure Earth's bounty and beauty for present and future
generations.
Religion professor and philanthropist Steven
Rockefeller chaired the Earth Charter drafting committee. "This past
century has been the most destructive in human history," said
Rockefeller. "Many tens of millions of people have been killed in
wars, and tens of thousands of species have been destroyed. The
Earth Charter is a call for an awakening of universal
responsibility."
Maurice Strong of Canada, chairman of the Earth Council, was
Secretary General of the 1992 United Nations Conference on
Environment and Development (the Earth Summit) and Under-Secretary
General of the United Nations. (Photo courtesy Earth
Council)
Eight years in creation, the Earth Charter
process was initiated by Ruud Lubbers, former Prime Minister of The
Netherlands, and carried out under the direction of Maurice Strong,
chairman of the Earth Council, and Mikhail Gorbachev, former
President of the Soviet Union, now president of Green Cross
International.
Other distinguished world leaders have also guided the process
including former adviser to the Prime Minister of India, Kamla
Chowdhry; former President of Mali, General Amadou Toumani Toure;
Argentinean pop singer Mercedes Sosa; Princess Basma Bint Talal of
Jordan, and former ambassador to the UN from Algeria Mohamed
Sahnoun.
Today's meeting in Paris launches the Earth Charter's worldwide
campaign. The Earth Charter contains 16 main principles and 59
supporting principles that outline an integrated vision for
sustainable development and human rights.
The Earth Charter embraces the view that the problems of poverty,
environmental degradation, ethnic and religious conflict, and social
injustice are all interdependent, thus policies that address one
problem can impact and improve other issues.
"We have the technology to foster sustainable change; what is
lacking is sufficient motivation. We now have The Earth Charter to
drive motivation," said Maurice Strong, co-chair of the Earth
Charter Commission.
"Our aim is that the Earth Charter be received as strongly and
profoundly as the International Declaration of Human Rights. We
intend to bring the Earth Charter to the UN in 2002, ten years after
the Rio Earth Summit," Strong said.
Mikhail Gorbachev Nobel Peace Prize winner (1990), former
President of the Soviet Union, now president of Green Cross
International. (Photo courtesy Green Cross International)
Gorbachev
said, "The Earth Charter will play a historical role within the
scope of international law by elaborating the moral and ethical
values for a modern civil society."
An objective of the educational campaign launched today is to
bring together people representing conflicting interests and
viewpoints among different nations and backgrounds to use the Earth
Charter as the framework for discussion.
Four global dialogues focused on the Earth Charter are being
proposed: