Introducing the Earth Charter
Contents mirrored from the Earth Charter website  http://earthcharter.org:
The Earth Charter is an ethical framework for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful global society in the 21st century. It seeks to inspire in all people a new sense of global interdependence and shared responsibility for the well-being of the whole human family, the greater community of life, and future generations. It is a vision of hope and a call to action. (Disclosure: The Earth Charter Initiative is a global organization separate from, much larger than, and not an endorser of, this website, the C.U.E. Library. We support its noble efforts.) Download the Earth Charter in one of 65 languages! The Earth Charter is centrally concerned with the transition to sustainable ways of living and sustainable human development. Ecological integrity is one major theme. However, the Earth Charter recognizes that the goals of ecological protection, the eradication of poverty, equitable economic development, respect for human rights, democracy, and peace are interdependent and indivisible. It provides, therefore, a new, inclusive, integrated ethical framework to guide the transition to a sustainable future. To help stimulate dialogue around the relevance of the Earth Charter to contemporary issues, ECI executive director, Mirian Vilela, invited Prof Brendan Mackey* in 2017 to write an essay as a personal reflection on the Earth Charter’s current relevance and the ways in which it can be used to help promote a more just, sustainable and peaceful world. The idea then evolved to broaden this activity by inviting a group of people who are engaged with the Earth Charter initiative to write a brief response to Brendan’s essay and to share all these reflections on the relevance of the Earth Charter to contemporary issues by posting them on the ECI web site. We hope these materials will help stimulate an expanded dialogue on the significant and relevance of the Earth Charter to contemporary issues and the challenges of the Anthropocene *Director of Griffith University’s Climate Change Response Programme. Brendan was a member of the Earth Charter Drafting committee, former co-chair of Earth Charter International Council and is a senior advisor of the Earth Charter Initiative.Document Downloads: Chapters from The Earth Charter in Action