The Religion & Culture Web Forum

February 2007

Introduction

The Earth Charter (2000) is the most comprehensive and widely endorsed of the many international declarations that have sought to articulate a new “global ethic” of sustainability, justice, and peace since the Stockholm Conference in 1972. Launched after a decade of consultations beginning with the Rio Summit in 1992 and translated into over thirty languages, it is increasingly used as a framework for education in sustainable development and for the formulation of new codes of ethics and law.

The primary obstacle to its endorsement by the United Nations General Assembly is the opposition of the United States, evident at the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 and the Bangkok Third World Conservation Congress in 2004 (at Bangkok an overwhelming majority of both government and NGO delegates voted to adopt the Charter over the objections of representatives from seven United States government agencies, including the State Department). The primary support for the Charter has come from United Nations agencies, such as UNESCO; national governments, such as the Netherlands and Mexico; numerous local governments, especially municipalities; and hundreds of civil society organizations, including religious communities and universities.

The text of the Charter and information on the current activities of its supporters and affiliates may be readily accessed at www.earthcharterinaction.org.

A 1999 symposium on “Theology and World Ethics” at the University of Chicago Divinity School reflected on the theological and ethical sources and implications of the Charter. It helped to initiate many subsequent discussions in public and academic settings around the world. Although the Charter is incomplete and has been justly criticized from numerous standpoints, it nonetheless serves as an important landmark in the growing dialogue on global ethics.  

My interpretation of the Charter grows out of my participation in its drafting, and draws on covenantal theology and the ethics of responsibility, Christian ecojustice ethics, evolutionary biology, and current discussions of democratic theory and faith. Most recently, I have been concerned for the diverse historical narratives that have converged in the substantive vision of the Charter, including what David Held calls the “metanarrative of democracy” itself; the need for supporting local or regional “Earth charters”; and the relationship between the Charter and international law. The following essay was the first in a series of interpretative essays reflecting on the Earth Charter.

Ron Engel

Read the text of the Earth Charter
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