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Thank you very much, Rabbi Ravindra. Dr. Mackey, in my family we have an expression: never follow the banjo player. Brendan, it's a delight to introduce you formally. I thank you for being with us. Dr. Brendan Mackey is an environmental scientist at the Australian National University. He is involved in research and teaching in the fields of greenhouse science and ecological conservation. He is a member of the Earth Charter core drafting team and currently serves as chair of the Earth Charter Education Advisory Committee. He is co-chair of the World Conservation Union Ethics Specialist Group and an inaugural member of Catholic Earth Care Australia, the environmental advisory body to the Bishops' Committee for Justice, Development, Ecology and Peace. Please make welcome Dr. Brendan Mackey. Well, welcome, friends and colleagues, and I thank the rabbi for his words of inspiration. The good rabbi made reference to the Earth Charter, which is a document you have a copy of in your show bag. So I urge you, at some point today, to pull it out and have a good look at it, and I'll be referring to it in my short presentation as well. But I think we all entered the new millennium a couple of years ago with the hope that somehow a world order would emerge that left behind the scourge of violence and war. Prospects were very promising with the end of the Cold War. We had the hint of the so-called peace dividend, and I think, critically, we had experienced 55 years of the United Nations Charter, which was signed and came into force in 1945. For most of the people in this room, they've never known anything else. They have lived in the era of the United Nations, but it was only since 1945 that that charter came into effect. I want to read briefly from its preamble, the preamble of the United Nations Charter: "We, the peoples of the United Nations, are determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, to practice tolerance, live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, to unite our strength, to maintain international peace and security through the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods and machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples." So the critical new message that the United Nations Charter gave us was that international affairs should be governed by ethical principles and multilateral negotiations, and that human rights, economic development, and social justice are all essential components and necessary prerequisites for peace and global security. Peace does not fall off the back of a truck. The notion that sustainability and the need to protect Earth's environment was part of the global security agenda was not advanced and accepted until 1972, the Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. It was at that moment, nearly 30 years since the founding of the UN Charter, that the world community, the peoples of the world, recognized the need to protect Earth's environment and the dependency of human wellbeing on a healthy Earth. While the last 50 years has seen, as the rabbi and others have made reference, ongoing injustice, violence, and environmental degradation, and while clearly the UN as an organization is still evolving and struggling to overcome its institutional shortcomings, we should not doubt that the developments we've witnessed since the founding of the UN are truly historic. The significance of these changes, I think, is generally unappreciated. Previously it was held there was little, if any, role for ethics in how national governments interacted. There was a famous British commentator, a writer called Hobbes, in the 17th century, who argued that there was no role for ethics in international affairs. Governments had a responsibility to look after their own citizens, and he argued it was generally acceptable and necessary that national governments behave in their treatment of people in other nations in ways that were unacceptable in terms of how they treated their own citizens. Indeed, many people argued it was foolish for nations to expose themselves to rogue states who would not play by the golden rule. The UN Charter banished forever this Hobbesian worldview. Now, whilst I'm sure most, if not all of us, are appalled by the war that's being waged by our country, the USA and Great Britain, against Iraq, it is a war unlike any other in history in that every aspect of its validity is continuing to be questioned and debated in all areas, in all sectors, including within the UN system and on the streets by the people. This war is being challenged and debated unlike any other war. I think the world has changed forever. War is no longer accepted without question. It's in this context that I ask you to consider the alternative worldview articulated by the Earth Charter, a charter born out of the Rio Earth Summit and produced through a most open, participatory, and rigorous drafting process. The Earth Charter aims to provide a clear articulation of shared values and ethical principles needed to establish a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world. The promise of the Earth Charter is to advance the search for ethics shared by all cultures and the promulgation of international affairs governed by agreed principles. Amongst other things, the Earth Charter is the conscience and the moral compass needed if economic globalization is to become part of the solution rather than the problem in our quest for sustainable development. If there is but one lesson we can learn from the history of human life on earth, it is that war does not cause peace. It's obvious when you think about it. But this is not to say that peace cannot be won. Rather, we must start to pay as much attention to the preconditions for peace as we currently do to our preparations for war. So what are the necessary preconditions for peace? The Earth Charter argues we should, and I quote, "recognize that peace is the wholeness created by right relationships with oneself, other persons, other cultures, other life, earth and the larger whole of which all are a part." The Earth Charter conceptualizes peace as the outcome of right relationships in four key domains: respecting and caring for the community of life, ensuring ecological integrity, advancing social and economic justice, and promoting democracy, non-violence, and peace. The Earth Charter ethic promotes a sense of universal responsibility for the greater community of life and future generations. The Earth Charter makes clear that the great challenges of our time are interdependent and demand integrated solutions. Environmental protection is essential to ensure a healthy life for all. But as an environmental scientist, I know that there can be no environmental protection without peace. And I think we all realize there can be no peace without justice and no justice without an end to poverty. Justice, sustainability, and peace are the true foundations of global security. To conclude, around US$1 trillion per year is spent on the machinery of war. The opportunity costs are staggering. If we invested this amount of money each year to address the fundamental problems of poverty, environmental degradation, and injustice, we would soon achieve the necessary preconditions for peace, a true and lasting peace. Global security will not be achieved through the barrel of a gun, but through a reorientation of our value systems, a commitment to ethics in decision making and international affairs, demilitarization to what is needed for genuine self-defence, and a peace dividend which is invested in sustainable development—development that meets human needs, is equitable, and sustains the health of the natural environment on which all life depends. Such is the promise of the Earth Charter.