Religions, civil society and the UN system

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, religions and international relations are shaped by and are responsive to great global changes. After the long dominance by the Western secular model in international relations, Western-based paradigms, including the relation between religion and the state, are being increasingly questioned. The impact of globalisation processes and the resurgence of religious movements have strengthened the quest for complementary approaches to exclusively nation-centred, confrontational real­politik and purely secular diplomacy. In this context, the question of how global civil so­ciety actors, religious communities and interreligious organisations relate to the UN Sys­tem, the pre-eminent place for nations to negotiate their co-existence on the global level, is one of the core issues in developing alternative models for a more humane global governance. This article gives an introduction to the relations between religious organisa­tions and the UN System, with some concluding remarks offering a way forward.