The Peace Wheel - Governance, Law & Security

Participatory governing systems, ensuring equity and justice for all. Rights and responsibilities. Empowerment of civil society. Security shifts from "weaponry to livingry".

Peace through Law is found at the crown of the Wheel, the foundation for Life in a civilized world. Global standards for human rights, including equal rights for women and children are in the forefront of needed developments in international law. The recognition and acceptance of Nature's Moral Laws, and certain basic principles of conduct -- a global ethic -- will serve as the guardian of human rights from the personal to the planetary level. Democratic governance, with tolerance and honor for difference and self-segregated groupings, must be encouraged. A great problem is how to remove corruption from present political systems. How can we, as citizens of the world, cooperatively prevent despots and tyrants from amassing military power and oppressing groups of people?

Pathways To Peace inaugurated a Caucus on the Rights of the Child within the UN System in 1994. The purpose of the Caucus was to build solidarity and concerted actions among NGOs of diverse sectors concerned with the Rights of the Child, in particular the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Pathways To Peace was also involved, as the Secretariat for the Culture of Peace Initiative (CPI) (formerly "WE THE PEOPLES" INITIATIVE), in the development of the World Summit of Children, which is now sponsored by the organization Peaceways, and its President, Ellen Brogren. The INITIATIVE gave the children's gatherings an official umbrella under the UN System. The 1995 Summit brought together over 80 children, 20 youth and 22 adults from 36 countries for about ten days, bringing together the voices of thousands of young people that they represented. They created a powerful vision statement, with proposals to create a HEAR THE CHILDREN DAY, a Young people's General Assembly as a permanent addition to the UN, and an International Keeping The Promise Report, recommending ways to monitor how governments are keeping their commitments under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.