The fact that constitutions and laws in some nations cannot satisfy social, economic, and cultural rights does not reduce or eliminate them as being very important for human living. It only, indicates that these claims are inseparable from the civil and political ones. The rights listed under the two United Nations covenants are of difference kinds , but they are interrelated at many points.
The nation that a person can be destitute and yet be civilly and politically free is a romantic myth. Monks of various religions may choose a life of holy poverty owning nothing and begging for food but, for those who abhor poverty , there is no holiness in it: only misery and revolting degradation. Moreover , they suffer infringement of the rights of both covenants because they must live in poverty. Million of black person, for example, are effectually, if not always legally, deprived of civil, political, and other rights, because their poverty makes them powerless. They are poor and powerless because they are black , and, for this reason, they are victims of white racism. Racism in many instance cause widespread deprivation of rights. Racism is totally contradictory and repugnant to the Christian faith. White racism is the most dangerous of all kinds of ethnocentrism, because the largest measure of economic and military power belongs to the world’s white minority. It is the blunt and brutal reality of this aspect of human rights which today causes greatest concern to the members of Protestant churches.
The World Council of Churches is the most widely representative forum of Protestant Christians, who fortunately meet always with many Orthodox and some Roman Catholics. Therefore, the St. Polten consultation of 1974 and its sequel of discussions in the Fifth Assembly of the Council at Nairobi, Kenya, in 1975 have provided significant statement on human rights.
Seeking to formulate an ecumenical agreement on priorities in basic human rights, the St. Polten delegates concurred on six, which