The Third Principle of the Earth Charter

Social and Economic Justice
The Third Principle of the Earth Charter

The principle of social and economic justice, so important to everyone is the opening of a way to take care of a person’s basic needs.

It took a lot of experience and wisdom to initiate the four main ideas of the third principle.

The following comes directly from the Earth Charter itself.

Eradicate poverty as an ethical, social and environmental imperative.

• Guarantee the right to potable water. Clean air, food security, uncontaminated soil, shelter, and safe sanitation, allocating the national and international resources required.
• Empower every human being with the education and resources to secure a sustainable livelihood, and provide social security and safety nets for those who are unable to support themselves.
• Recognize the ignored, protect the vulnerable, serve those who suffer, and enable them to develop their capacities and to pursue their aspirations.

Ensure that economic activities and institutions at all levels promote human development in an equitable and sustainable manner.

• Promote the equitable distribution of wealth within nations and among nations.
• Enhance the intellectual, financial, technical and social resources of developing nations, and relieve them of onerous international debt.
• Ensure that all trade supports sustainable resource use, environmental protection and progressive labor standards.
• Require multinational corporations and international financial organizations to act transparently in the public good, and hold themselves accountable for the consequences of their activities.

Affirm gender equality and equity as prerequisites to sustainable development and ensure universal access to education, health care, and economic opportunity.

• Secure the human rights of women and girls and end all violence against them.
• Promote the active participation in all aspects of economic, political, civil, social and cultural life as full and equal partners, decision makers, leaders and beneficiaries.
• Strengthen families and ensure the safety and loving nurture of all family members.

Uphold the right of all, without discrimination, to a natural and social environment supportive of human dignity, bodily health, and spiritual well-being, with special attention to the rights of indigenous peoples and minorities.

• Eliminate discrimination in all its forms, such as that based on race, color, sex, sexual orientation, religion, language, and national, ethnic or social origin.
• Affirm the right of indigenous peoples to their spirituality, knowledge, lands, and resources and to their related practice of sustainable livelihoods.
• Honor and support the young people of our communities, enabling them to fulfill their essential role in creating sustainable societies.
• Protect and restore outstanding places of cultural and spiritual significance.

The Earth Charter is a work in progress, an unfinished document that will hopefully be revisited and revised at least once a decade.

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Then in time more will come to the authors’ attention that must be included in this document that is neglected or unwittingly left out. It is sometimes called the constitution for a global super state which some people are opposed to.

Rebecca A Field  © All rights reserved