lects the
principles guiding its work. It has escaped labelling as merely another
special interest lobby group. While making full use of the expertise and
executive resources of its United Nations Office and Office of Public
Information, the Community has come to be recognized by its fellow
non-governmental organizations as essentially an "association" of
democratically elected national "councils", representative of a
cross-section of humankind. Baha'i delegations to international events
commonly include members appointed by various National Spiritual
Assemblies who are experienced in the subject matters under discussion and
who can provide regional perspectives.

This feature of the Faith's involvement in the life of society--in which
motivating principle and operating method represent two dimensions of a
unified approach to issues--demonstrated its power at the series of world
summits and related conferences organized by the United Nations held
between 1990 and 1996. In that period of nearly six years, the political
leaders of the world came together repeatedly under the aegis of the
Secretary-General of the United Nations to discuss the major challenges
facing humankind as the twentieth century drew to a close. No Baha'i can
review the themes of these historic gatherings without being struck by how
closely the agenda mirrored major teachings of Baha'u'llah. It seemed
befitting that the centenary of His ascension should occur at the midway
point in the process, endowing the meetings, for Baha'is, with spiritual
meaning beyond merely their stated goals.

Among those gatherings, the World Conference on Education for All in
Thailand (1990), the World Summit for Children in New York (1990), the
United Nations Conference on the Environment in Rio de Janeiro (1992), an
anguished and chaotic World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna (1993),
the International Conference on Population in Cairo (1994), the World
Summit for Social Development in Copenhagen (1995), and the particularly
vibrant Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing (1995),(141) stand out
as highlights of this process of global discourse on the problems
afflicting the world's peoples. At the concurrent non-governmental
conferences, Baha'i delegations, made up of members from a wide range of
countries, had the opportunity to place issues in a spiritual as well as
social perspective. Evidence of the trust the Community enjoys among
hundreds of its fellow non-