General Assembly Resolutions

Promotion of Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, Understanding, and Cooperation for Peace, GA 61/221, adopted 20 December 2006

Promotion of Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, Understanding, and Cooperation for Peace, GA 60/10, adopted 3 November 2005

Promotion of Interreligious Dialogue, GA 59/23, adopted 11 November 2004

Promotion of Religious and Cultural Understanding, Harmony, and Cooperation, GA 58/128, adopted 19 December 2003

Developments in Interreligious Dialogue

2007 - High-Level Dialogues began on Interreligious and Intercultural Understanding and Cooperation for Peace, including opportunities for civil-society participation. See reports from 2007 and 2008.

2007 - The Office for ECOSOC Support and Coordination in the Department of Economic and Social Affairs became the focal point for interreligious, intercultural and intercivilizational dialogue and cooperation efforts.

2006 - Proposal to declare 2011-2020 the UN Decade of Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue, Understanding and Cooperation for Peace

2006 - Tripartite Forum on Interfaith Cooperation for Peace began joint meetings with UN missions, UNESCO, and civil society.

2005 - Committee of Religious NGOs formed

2004 - UN NGO Committee on Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns began hosting a Week of Spirituality, Values and Global Concerns every fall at the UN in New York.

References to Religion and Spirituality
In early UN documents
By UN Secretaries-General

UPF's Proposal

Call for an Interreligious Council at the United Nations

The world has great expectations for the United Nations as an organization embodying humanity's aspiration for peace. The accomplishments and achievements attained through the United Nations have been significant. However, there is much room for improvement. The time has come for religion to renew itself and manifest true leadership in the world. People of faith should feel responsibility for the plight, suffering, and injustices experienced by the world's peoples. World peace can be fully accomplished only when the wisdom and efforts of the world's religious leaders, who represent the internal concerns of the mind and conscience, work cooperatively and respectfully with national leaders who have much practical wisdom and worldly experience.

Support Voiced by Statesmen, Diplomats, and NGO Leaders

The process of creating one world through globalization cannot be stopped. But this process must be parallel with a universal value system that meets the hopes for happiness and fulfillment for all humanity. This task is not the work of one single religion but the combined work of all religions. This challenge makes religion once again relevant in the daily affairs of mankind.

The Philippines Spearheads the Initiative

We are relentlessly pursuing our crusade for the United Nations to create a full-fledged Inter-Faith Council to coordinate, superintend, and promote interreligious dialogues at the global, regional, national and local levels – mobilizing in the process churches, mosques, temples and the Great Books of the faiths – the Torah, the Sermon on the Mount, the Qur’an, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Discourses of the Buddha, and the Analects of Confucius.

Legal and Scholarly Analyses

Religion has a major impact in developing countries. The everyday life of billions of people is influenced by their religion. It can reach out to the remotest areas of a country and have a positive impact on its population. While many violent conflicts include religious aspects, it is often forgotten that the resources for resolving conflicts lie within the fundamental basis of each religion.

Options to Explore

As an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), UPF can submit statements drawing on interreligious perspectives at the annual ECOSOC meetings and meetings of its Functional Commissions and Regional Commissions. Please send submissions to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .