The World Council of Churches has praised reforms proposed by the United Nations, but notes that more needs to be done, including reform of the Security Council, which is currently dominated by the five victorious powers of World War II.

The UN turned 80 this year and is based in New York, but it also has its European headquarters in Geneva, which is one of the four main UN offices, along with those in Nairobi and Vienna.

Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States are the only nations that can veto a resolution carried by a majority vote in the UN Security Council and countries advocating reform of the UN say that equation is outdated.

The WCC, like the UN, was formed in the aftermath of the Second World War and is headquartered in Geneva along with a number of different UN agencies, other international organizations such as the World Trade Organization and hundreds of NGOs.

"The Pact for the Future, adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2024, lays out some important directions and needed reforms," the WCC said in a statement released by its central committee, its main governing body between assemblies.

The WCC statement notes that, "even deeper and more fundamental reform will be required, including of the Security Council itself, to restore the organization's credibility and to address the historic exclusion of nations still under colonial domination at the time of the 1945 San Francisco Conference."

Eighty years ago, delegates of 50 nations met in San Francisco, USA, at the UN Conference on International Organization.

On June 26, 1945, the conference concluded with the signing of the United Nations Charter, establishing the organization designed to pursue its collectively agreed upon purposes.

The WCC central committee convened June 18-24 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

It said in its statement that mechanisms for proposed reform are provided for in the UN Charter (especially Article 109), "but they have never been properly utilized."

"Unlike the context in 1925 or in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, many treaties and other normative instruments of international law and many related accountability mechanisms have in the meantime been established," reads the text.

"The rule of law and the independence of the judiciary are being deliberately undermined, to the peril of all who lack such power."

The WCC central committee requested that the WCC general secretary Rev. Jerry Pillay develop relations and establish forms of cooperation with likeminded governments and institutions to defend and assert the principles and mechanisms of international law, the rule of law, and the independence of the judiciary.

"In this perilous moment, churches and Christians are called not to silently observe the disastrous trajectory of our nations and world towards division, injustice, conflict, and the marring of God's precious and unique creation, but to raise a prophetic voice, drawing on our faith principles and unity in Christ, and on the heritage of the Life and Work movement," reads the statement.

The central committee urges "all WCC member churches and ecumenical partners to engage in a Pilgrimage of Justice, Reconciliation, and Unity, not as an abstract slogan, but as an active and urgent witness in our societies and towards our governments against the prevailing culture of conflict, confrontation and division, and for unity and reconciliation."