At its meeting in Uppsala, Sweden this summer, the World Council of Churches endorsed a principle that invites prolonged national discussion. With only a few negative votes, the 720 delegates adopted a resolution that endorses selective conscientious objection. The pertinent section from the 4,000 word statement entitled “Towards Justice and Peace in International Affairs” reads as follows:

“Protection of conscience demands that the churches should give spiritual care and support not only to those serving in armed forces but also to those who, especially in the light of the nature of modern warfare, object to participation in particular wars they feel bound in conscience to oppose, or who find themselves unable to bear arms or to enter the military service of their nations for reasons of conscience. Such support should include pressure to have the law changed where required.”

We see the present with the eyes of the past, and the past with the eyes of the present. This is a truism: but one that is nonetheless worth repeating at a time when it is fashionable to believe that we live in a posthistoric age, that the past has little to tell us that is new or that is true. But what is fashionable is not correct, for all that we know comes from the past, from some kind of a past; all of our knowledge is essentially past-knowledge, whether we are conscious of this or not. Politics, for example, is not only inseparable from historical interpretation: it is a certain kind of historical interpretation. And since this interpretation is a living and changing thing in our minds (for "history," contrary to the generally accepted view, is not a static account of past periods) the interpretation involves, inevitably, the changing and moving "present": it is part and parcel of the movement of ideas. And the problem of how ideas move nowadays has preoccupied my mind (note the implicit meaning of the word pre-occupy) for a long time.

In the language and literature of politics there are few concepts at once as important and as confused as the idea of human rights.

The testimony to its importance is convincing. Countless men have died in the name of human rights. Entire societies have been formed with some vision of human rights as the central social creed, while other societies have been thoroughly disrupted by internal elements pursuing such rights. And today the politics of many nations and much of the politics among nations is carried on in verbal categories of human rights.

But if the significance of the notion of human rights is evident, the fact of disagreement about its meaning is no less clear.