ABOUT THE WORLD FAMILY POLICY CENTER

During the past decade, the United Nations has assumed a major new role: that of international lawmaker. As the lawmaking function of the U.N. has increased in importance, ideological input to the U.N. System often has been limited to the voices of a few, powerful lobbies. Many of these lobbies, moreover, have been hostile to the traditional family, and religious and cultural values. As a result of the one-sided influence of these lobbies, the United Nations faces substantial pressure to adopt legal norms that pose serious threats to family stability, parental rights and religious liberty. There are, however, numerous nations and non-governmental voices throughout the world that will join a coalition to promote a positive, pro-family culture and counter the growing threats to religion and international family stability.

To provide balanced, pro-family input and effectively educate the United Nations System on moral, religious and other value-based issues, the J. Reuben Clark Law School and the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, in partnership with the School of Family Life at Brigham Young University, have established The World Family Policy Center. The World Family Policy Center facilitates international policy debate by serving as an exchange point for the discussion and evaluation of emerging international legal norms and as an active participant in the examination of U.N. documents. The Center pursues these objectives by various means, including

* consistent attendance and participation in major U.N. Conferences,
* cooperation with like-minded organizations, and
* sponsorship of significant world-wide conferences on family policy.

MISSION STATEMENT

The World Family Policy Center, a cooperative effort among the J. Reuben Clark Law School, the David M. Kennedy Center for International Studies, and the School of Family Life, all at Brigham Young University, seeks to provide balanced, solidly researched, pro-family education to Member States and institutions within the United Nations System, individually and collectively, in order to protect and preserve the place of the family as the fundamental unit of society. Both traditional law and modern social science demonstrate that a society's health is premised on the vitality and strength of the family, which provides both its core and its future.

Our mission is:

To educate and advocate for strengthening the family in every society;

To provide a point of exchange for and play an active part in the discussion and evaluation of emerging UN agreements concerning the family and factors that affect it, such as moral, religious, and related value-based issues;

To provide non-governmental organizations (and private individuals) throughout the world with access to family-supportive materials relevant to current UN initiatives relating to the social issues they face;

To apply family-supportive social science and legal research to formulations of social policy; and

To facilitate the full and open discussion of proposals for new legal and social norms before various UN bodies and agencies.