IHEU and 42 other NGOs represented at the United Nations have written to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In their letter, the NGOs call for the High Commissioner to appoint a team of human rights monitors large enough to ensure that the ceasefire becomes truly effective and refugees can safely return to their homes. The letter goes on to say that the new Human Rights Council will, in part, be tested by the way it deals with the Darfur conflict.

The IHEU commiserates with the suffering of the Iraqi people and deplores the economic sanctions, bombings, and use of depleted uranium which have caused it. Recognising the role of the Iraqi government in contributing to this crisis, we urge the UN to use every possible means at its disposal to resolve the conflict peacefully.

General Assembly, Mumbai, 15 January 1999

The International Humanist and Ethical Union deplores the intense inter-communal hatred and warfare that have been unleashed in the former states of Yugoslavia. We grieve at the senseless violence and bloodshed and the murder, rape and pillage of helpless women, men and children.

We wish to point out that much of the destructive hatred among Serbs, Croats and Bosnians has its roots in religious chauvinism, as three major faiths -- Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Islam -- vie for hegemony and power. Unfortunately, the mass media have not made it clear that religious animosities as well as nationalistic and ethnic passions are responsible for much of the hatred and that in the name of religious tradition, people often feel justified in murdering others. Many of these same people are now at war with each other had been living together in peace and harmony only a few short years ago. Yest when religious dogma and creed separate them they are prone to narrowly define individuals in terms of religious criteria.

This congress calls on the leaders and peoples of the states formerly known as Yugoslavia to cease their active hostilities and seek to resolve their religious and nationalistic differences through peaceful political means.

Cultural and ethnic diversity is a source of strength within society when differences are mediated by political processes. Such diversity and process are characteristic of the European democratic state. Alternative means of resolving conflict are unworkable, unacceptable, and impoverishing to the richness of society.

The International Humanist & Ethical Union, assembled at its 8th World Congress in Hanover, Federal Republic of Germany, August 1-5, 1982,

Considering that PLO members arrested in the Lebanese war by Israeli Defence Forces are captured under war circumstances and not because of specific terrorist acts,

Resolves that all PLO member arrested by Israeli Defence Forces in the Lebanese war should be recognised as prisoners of war and treated according to the Geneva Convention.

The International Humanist & Ethical Union, assembled at its 8th World Congress in Hanover, Federal Republic of Germany, August 1-5, 1982, expresses its grave concern with the killing that is going on in the Lebanon.

As humanist we disagree with the use of physical violence for the attainment of political goals by the belligerents. Both the Israeli and Palestinian people have the right to live in their respective independent sovereign states.

Mr Nixon, President US Congress

The White House Washington, D.C. USA

Washington, D.C., USA

The board of the International Humanist & Ethical Union feels highly alarmed by continuation of bombardments in Vietnam and postponement of peace agreement and call upon President and Congress of US to cease war without perspective and its useless destruction of life and land in order to free western world from further suspicion of more power politics.

The IHEU wishes to see this tragic conflict terminated as speedily as possible. We condemn the killing of defenceless citizens and deliberate or accidental destruction of civic and industrial plants in the North, of which the bombing is the latest example. By such action millions of innocent lives are taken or endangered.

We call for an immediate end to all foreign involvement in Vietnam, and for a negotiated political settlement of the conflict.

In accordance with the motto of this Fifth Congress of the IHEU, "To seek a humane world", and because the IHEU believes that it speaks for men and women throughout the world in condemning the intervention by the major military powers in the affairs of smaller nations in violation of international law and Charter of the United Nations,

The International Humanist & Ethical Union meeting at Cambridge, USA calls upon the U.S. Government to cease its appalling destruction of life and liberty in Southeast Asia and to withdraw its forces without delay.

The International Humanist & Ethical Union believes that it speaks for men and women throughout the world in condemning the intervention by the major military powers in the affairs of smaller nations in violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations.

We call upon the Government of the USSR to end its occupation of Czechoslovakia and its suppression of the freedom of the Czechoslovak people in their attempt to create "socialism with a human face".