Lent, 2006

ECO-JUSTICE:  A PROPOSAL FOR LENT

In the life-cycles of many animals, and some trees, there comes a point where you need to slough off the old skin - and grow. In the Church, we call this period Lent.

Snakes shed their skin annually, which led to the belief that they were immortal. In the great Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, it is the snake that steals from the hero the plant that gives eternal life. So, humans die, and snakes live forever. (You’ll remember that Adam and Eve lost out in a similar deal, in Genesis).

The lemon-scented gums outside the window where I write (Westcourt, in Western Australia) shed their bark in late spring. Their soft pink turns to a deep russet, then the bark splits and falls in great flakes, and the tree emerges, newly cream, which will slowly turn to pink over the summer.

The point of shedding skin is to grow. In insects, this process is called ekdiasis. For a few weeks, the animal is soft and tender, very vulnerable, like someone newly returned from retreat, or renewal. The animal has to hide, in a cave or cleft, until the new skin hardens. But it is while the new skin is soft that the animal grows, expanding and enlarging.

Lent has always stressed repentance (the shedding) and generous giving (the growth). It is prayer (the cave in which we wait) that enables us to survive the vulnerability and welcome the growth.

The invitation this Lent may be to shed consumption patterns that waste Earth’s precious resources. The growth may be in living simply – giving back more to the Earth.

Your gift may be water, energy, recyclable materials, your own time and energy. Those who receive it are the whole Earth community. Reducing your individual and community use of electricity, gas, water, fossil fuels, this Lent will reduce your ecological footprint. There will be more for all.

In fact, why would you return to wasteful patterns once Lent is over? The point of shedding skin is to grow!

Br. Moy Hitchens, Congregation Promoter for Eco-Justice

Human rights is a notion that has been determinedly evolving throughout human history. They have been intricately attached to the laws, customs and religions throughout time. But only after the utter atrocities committed during the World War II the international community changed the view on human rights, recognizing that these rights were to be proclaimed and enforced universally. In the aftermath of the Holocaust the world expressed the need for the protection of a set of inalienable human rights.

Pax-Romana welcomes the creation of the United Nations Human Rights Council as a move towards substantive changes within the UN system in the promotion and protection of universally recognized human rights standards, “reaffirming the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Vienna Declaration and Program of Action and recalling the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and other human rights instruments” (PP2[2]).

Even though we recognize and celebrate national and regional diversity, we emphasize that all national states, “regardless of their political, economic and cultural systems, have the duty to promote and protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms” (PP4).

    1)  In the international arena, during the last fifty years, it has known systematically the emergence of legal corpuses that propose and pledge an increasing number of rights and liberties for every human being. In this process a new international actor has came out, the NGOs that have been reshaping the international law, defying the traditional exclusivism of governments in this field and incorporating in the international agenda always new challenges[4].  Since the Commission on Human Rights has a rich experience in collaborative efforts in working together with NGOs, we strongly recommend that the Council should keep the good practice of the ones from the Commission on Human Rights without interruption.

     2) Membership:

      b)   The states engaged in gross, systematic human rights violations should not be elected.

            i) We believe that this objective can be secured by:

               (1) ensuring an individual and direct vote of two-thirds of the General Assembly;

               (2) requiring regional groups to put forward more candidates than the number of seats allocated to their region;

               (3) stipulating that an entirely new Council should be elected rather than declaring that current members become the first members of the new Council. (*) [5]

 c) The states under Security Council sanctions for human rights violations should be categorically       excluded. Additionally we recommend the unambiguous recognition of the right of creation and       expression of NGOs at a national level as a criterion for selection.

    3) Consideration of Country-Specific Situations: the ability of the new Council to consider country situations and adopt resolutions must not be limited. In particular, adoption of country-specific resolutions should continue to require a simple majority of Council members in accordance with usual rules. (*)

    4)  Special Procedures: one of the achievements of the Commission on Human Rights is the creation of the Special Procedures mechanism. The Council should be able to maintain and strengthen this mechanism. More time should be allocated for the interactive dialogues with the experts of Special Procedures, and the Council should ensure to make the follow up of the recommendations of their reports.

     5)  Voting process: The voting process in the Council should be by majority.