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This article is written by Francis Campbell, UK Ambassador to the Holy See.
Yesterday in the Foreign Office saw the first consultation meeting with faith groups interested in disarmament. Sixteen delegates attended representing all the major faith groups. We split the discussion into two parts: the first on the Arms Trade Treaty and the second on the Non Proliferation Treaty. We wrapped up the meeting with a contribution from FCO Minister Ivan Lewis.
This was the first time we had undertaken such a consultation with faith groups on the subject of disarmament. Why a consultation with faith groups? We want to replicate the success of working with faith groups on the Cluster Munitions Treaty which was signed last year.
At the preparatory conferences, in particular at Wellington, the Holy See played a very active role in getting a practical workable agreement and in bridging divides to allow us to get a binding Treaty banning cluster munitions. We see a similar role for faith groups in working towards an Arms Trade Treaty. In engaging faith groups in the discussion we see three aspects. There is the moral dimension that faith groups bring to the work of the Arms Trade Treaty.
As history shows, faith groups are often at the forefront of righting wrongs and in providing the impetus for change. Then there are the global grassroots networks which allow faith groups to communicate easily across cultures, languages and nations. In Catholic terms alone, the Holy See speaks directly to 17.5% of the world’s population. Finally, as faith groups engage each other in inter-religious dialogue there is scope to concentrate on ethical dialogue where there is a strong shared moral foundation. Perhaps one of those ethical issues could be the international efforts to bring transparency to the sale and transfer of conventional weapons and to stamp out the illicit sales of such weapons through a binding international Arms Trade Treaty.
Yesterday we were simply testing the water to see if there was interest among faith groups in having such a conversation with the FCO on the Arms Trade Treaty and the Non Proliferation Treaty. There was – and we agreed to continue with the group as we move forward on the ambitious timetable to achieve an Arms Trade Treaty. But there was also interest from the group in having a wider discussion with the FCO on other foreign policy considerations. The Minister agreed to look into that request and revert.
But yesterday was also important for reasons beyond what we had on our agenda. It was also symbolic of a new approach in foreign policy. I have spoken on faith and foreign policy before and why religion was often ignored in foreign policy considerations for much of the post Second World War period. A 2007 report from the Washington based Centre for Strategic and International Studies catalogued the reasons why religion was often ignored in foreign policy and diplomacy and why it deserved to be taken seriously. A former US Secretary of State – Madeline Albright – made a similar case in her book ‘The Mighty and the Almighty’.
Much of the marginalisation of religion from foreign policy considerations was based on an assumption that the world was secularising and religion was of decreasing interest across the world (such an assumption was not confined to diplomacy alone). But there was a significant mistake in such a calculation because the secularisation model really only explained the pattern in Europe and some other parts of the Western world. It did not capture the United States or the rest of the world where societies were as religious as ever or in some cases more so. There was no proven universally applicable law of modernisation leading to secularisation. This point is more fully expanded in a speech I gave on ‘God in a Secular World’, but the basic point is that religion is an influence in world affairs and as such needs to be taken seriously.
Today, much has changed vis a vis faith and foreign policy. We can point to strong working relations with faith groups on climate change, international development, conflict resolution and prevention, inter-religious dialogue, migration, human rights, etc. If we can replicate the success of working with faith groups on the Jubilee Debt Campaign, Make Poverty History and the Cluster Munitions Treaty, by achieving an Arms Trade Treaty – then we can show again that faith matters in foreign policy and that it is a real asset when trying to solve many of the world’s problems. Yesterday was a good start.
