World Council of Churches
PO Box 2100
CH-1211 Geneva 2
Tel.: +41 22 791 6111
Fax: +41 22 791 0361
Ms Genevive Jacques - Director of Programme (France)

The Churches Commission on International affairs (CCIA) comprises thirty people nominated by churches and regional ecumenical organizations to advise the WCC in international affairs. The staff of the WCC International Affairs, Peace and Human Security team – experienced professionals from around the world – engage with and support churches and ecumenical bodies on these urgent priorities:

•  peace-making and peaceful resolution of conflicts
•  militarism, disarmament and arms control
•  human security and the root causes of terrorism
•  human rights, religious liberty and intolerance
•  impunity, justice and reconciliation
•  international law and global governance

The ecumenical movement is vital to the new social context of an emerging global civil society. The International Affairs, Peace and Human Security staff help focus the concerns of churches and advocate on their behalf for peace and justice in the international arena.

The WCC speaks the truth to power and reminds it that human decisions and actions must always be based on ethical principles founded on justice and human dignity for all.

Parent Organization: The World Council of Churches (WCC) is the broadest and most inclusive among the many organized expressions of the modern ecumenical movement, a movement whose goal is Christian unity.

The WCC brings together more than 340 churches, denominations and church fellowships in over 100 countries and territories throughout the world, representing some 400 million Christians and including most of the world's Orthodox churches, scores of denominations from such historic traditions of the Protestant Reformation as Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed, as well as many united and independent churches. While the bulk of the WCC's founding churches were European and North American, today most are in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, the Middle East and the Pacific.

For its member churches, the WCC is a unique space: one in which they can reflect, speak, act, worship and work together, challenge and support each other, share and debate with each other. As members of this fellowship, WCC member churches:

- are called to the goal of visible unity in one faith and one eucharistic
  fellowship;
- promote their common witness in work for mission and evangelism;
- engage in Christian service by serving human need, breaking down
  barriers between people, seeking justice and peace, and upholding the
  integrity of creation; and
- foster renewal in unity, worship, mission and service.

"Spiritual discernment gives us strength, conviction, and the courage to withstand the harsh realities of violence and power. Being in touch with the word of God and with the Spirit of God who is within each of us, makes us able to withstand the day-to-day rigors of working for peace and justice at a time when the forces of violence, war and oppression are ascendant."

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