CHAPTER-II

THE RIO EARTH SUMMIT

The Earth Summit was the biggest intergovernmental conference ever

held. More correctly called the United Nations Conference on Environment

and Development (UNCED), the summit was held on 3rd to 14th June 1992 in

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to coincide with World Environment Day, June 5th

1992. 1 The summit brought together the heads of state and government from

more than 160 countries and international organizations. More than 10,000

people attended the meeting officially, and thousands more participated in

parallel events organized by non-governmental organizations (NGOs)

representing North and South, East and West. The participants in the official

and unofficial activities represented democracies, dictatorships, theocracies,

anarchists, religious orders, environmental groups, indigenous peoples,

human rights organizations, and the international business com~unity.2

The Stockholm and Rio Conference are commonly viewed as twin

landmarks in the evolution of international environmental policy. The United

Nations Conference on the Human Environment of 1972 was associated with

the first generation of international activities in 1960s and 1970s. 3 The Earth

Summit (UNCED) may be regarded as a follow-up to the Stockholm

Conference convened 20 years earlier. UNCED not only sought to revive the

cross-sectoral perspective of that conference, but also made explicit the

political, organizational and scientific linkages between environmental

I/

2

Yhttalo, L., and Grahl, J., (ed.).

How Common is Our Future? Human Settlements, Development, and Environment. International Forum,. Mexico March, 4 -7, 1991, p. 36.

Mintzer, Irving M., and Leonard, J.A., (ed.), "Negotiating Climate change. The Inside Story of the, Rio Convention", Stockholm Environment Institute, Cambridge University Press, 1994, p. 15. · Cooper, A.F., and Fritz, S., "Bringing the NGOs in: UNCED and Canada's international environmental Policy", International Journal XL VII autumn 1992, p. 796.

22

degradation and economic development. The scope of the UNCED

undertaking also represented a political reaction on the part of many

governments to some very specific environmental causes celebres, which

arose during the late 1980s. A series of accidental and negligent actions, such

as those occurring at Bhopal, Chernobyl and Basel, radicalized and directed

what had previously been a general unease. The rising pace of environmental

awareness was evidenced by the rise of the Green parties in Europe,

especially in West Germany, and sophisticated NGO campaigns on issues

such as nuclear testing, toxic dumping and whaling at the international level.

The growing scientific consensus on stratospheric ozone depletion and the

enhanced greenhouse effects brought after 1988 even the more quiescent

Anglo-Saxon political communities to an unprecedented level of political

consciousness.4 Finally, there was an appropriate response to the

environmental problem from the highest level of government. At their annual

meeting in July 1989 the leaders of the seven major industrial powers- Great

Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada,

and the United States - agreed that environmental issues should be given

utmost attention. It was recommended that a series of negotiations be carried

out in this area. In his address to the superpower summit, Soviet President

Mikhail Gorbachov strongly supported this recommendation (Kremenyuk,

1989). The change in attitude of the developed nations helped to pave the

way towards the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and

Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.5

From a legal and institutional standpoint, the Earth Summit produced

three important agreements. These were: (i) the Climate convention, (ii) the

Biodiversity convention, and (iii) Agenda 21. In addition, the participants at

UNCED agreed to a statement of principles known as the Rio Declaration.

4 Imber, M.F., "Environment, Security and UN Reform", St. Martin's Press, London, 1994, p. 85. Kremenyuk Winfreid Lang, V.A., in "International Environmental Negotiation", Sjostedt, G., (ed.) SAGE Publications, New Delhi, 1993, p. 5.

23

Each of these instruments established important precedents and underlined the

continuing relationship between issues of economic development and

environmental protection. Taken together, they set the agenda on global

environmental issues for the next several decades. 6

The Earth Summit made it clear that we have reached a crossroad in

the human experience. Human activities have brought the world to this critical

juncture, and human activities are now the principal determinant of whether

the future of our planet will be a secure and hospitable hom,e for humankind.

We are literally in command of our own evolution. 7

Background

After Stockholm Conference 1972, more than 1 00 governments set up

environmental ministries and agencies, which in tum enacted environmental

regulations. The Stockholm Conference also gave birth to the World

Commission on Environment and Development, known as the Brundtland

Commission after its Chairperson, Gro Harlem Brundtland, the Prime

Minister of Norway. It was this commission's report, "Our Common Future",

that called a global conference on environment and development. 8

UNCED (Earth Summit) was in fact inspired mainly by the Brundtland'

Report of 1987, which linked the environmental concerns of the North with

the development concerns of the South. Indeed, the Brundtland·report coined

the term 'Sustainable development', pointing to both the wasteful and

environmentally damaging effects of 'over consumption' in the developed

countries and the equally destructive effects of poverty in the developing

countries. Shortly after the publication of the report, Mrs. Brundtland became

Prime Minister of Norway and she promoted its findings at a high political

6

7 Mintzer, Irving M., and Leonard, J.A., (ed.), n. 2, p. 16. Bartelmus, P., "Environment, Growth and Development The Concepts and Strategies of Sustainability", Routledge, London, 1994, p. xiii (forward)] Taking Action an Environmental Guide for you and your community, UNEP- 1995, p. 8.

24

level. Joined by some unlikely allies (amongst them Prime Minister Thatcher,

President Gorbachev, President Mitterrand and Prime Minister Mrs. Gandhi),

she raised environment and development issues at the United Nations in the

mid-1980s and, by the end of 1988, had rallied 50 world leaders in support of

some sort of action based on the findings of report.9 As a consequence, on 22

December 1989, the United Nation General Assembly adopted resolution

number 44/228, which set up the UN Conference on Environment and

Development, which function· at the 'highest possible level'.

Further to the UN General Assembly's decision (Resolution 44/228) on

22 December 1989 to convene the United Nations conference on Environment

and Development in Brazil in 1992, an UNCED Preparatory Committee open

to all member governments of the United Nations was established. Prior to

the creation of the Preparatory Committee (Prep Com), on 8 February 1990,

United Nation Secretary- General Javier Perez de Cuellar had announced the

appointment of Maurice Strong of Canada, a former member of the World

Commission on Environment and Development, as UNCED's Secretary­

General. The UNCED secretariat, with a staff of approximately forty,. is

located in Geneva and additional small units in New York, headed by Jean­

Claude Faby, and Nairobi, headed by Fritz Schlingemann.

The Preparatory Committee held its Organizational Session on 5 - 16

March 1990 in New York, and at that meeting appointed Ambassador Tommy

Koh of Singapore to the post of chairman of The Preparatory Committee and

created a Bureau comprised of39 governments. 10

The Preparatory meetings for UNCED were first held in Nairobi from

7 to 31 August 1990, the second in Geneva from 18 March to 5 April 1991,

the third in Geneva from 12 to August 1991 and the fourth in New York in

early 1992, during which a draft agenda was produced active participation of

9

10

Dunn, H.D., (ed.) "Diplomacy at the Highest Level the Evolution oflntemational Summitry", Macmillan Press Ltd., London, 1996, p. 221. Ylatalo, L., and Grahl, J., (ed.). no. I, p. 35- 36.

25

NGOs at Rio agreed, and much of the text of the Rio Declaration and Agenda

21 agreed. I I

The UNCED Preparatory Committee and Its Work

Two open-ended Working Groups were established at the PrepCom's

March meeting. They helped with the task of providing overall guidance to

the wider preparatory process. The aim of the preparatory process was to

arrive in 1992 at specific agreements and commitments by Governments and

international organizations for defined activities on environment and

development specifying targets and time tables and providing the basis for

concrete action plans. The issues dealt by the Working Groups are

respectively:

Working Group- I Protection of the atmosphere by combating climate

change, depletion of the ozone layers, and trans boundary pollution; protection

and management of land resources by inter alia, combating ·deforestation,

desertification and drought conservation of biological diversity;

environmentally sound management of biotechnology.

Working Group- II Protection of the oceans and all kinds of seas, including

enclosed and semi-enclosed seas, and of coastal areas, and the protection,

rational use and development of their living resources; protecting of the

quality and supply of fresh water resources; environmentally sound

management of wastes, particularly hazardous wastes, and of toxic chemicals,

as well as prevention of illegal international traffic in toxic and dangerous

products and wastes.

Working Group- III Preparation for Earth Character pertaining to

environment and development principles to govern the conduct of nations and

peoples. 12

II McCormick, J. "The Global Environment Movement", John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1995, p. 254. .

I2 Ylatalo, L., and Grahl, 1., (ed.).·· no. 1, p. 36- 37.

26

The Framework Convention on Climate Change

The groundwork for the Framework Convention began in 1988 when

the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 43/53 recognizing

climate changes as a common concern of humanity. That year, United Nations

Environment Programme (UNEP) and the UN World Meteorological

Organization (WMO) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate

Change (IPCC) to investigate the potential security and impact of global

climate change and to suggest possible policy responses. The IPCC's First

Assessment Report was published in August 1990 and discussed at the second

World Climate Conference later that year.

The report noted, among other things, that the 1989 session of the UN

General Assembly had agreed that existing legal instrumepts and institutions

dealing with climate change were insufficient and that a framework

convention on climate change was needed. As a "framework", the Convention

set of general principles and obligations in various areas. In December 1990,

the General Assembly set up the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee

(INC) for a Framework Convention on Climate Change (INC/FCCC),

supported by UNEP and WMO. Negotiations began in February 1991 and

ran parallel to the work of the Committee preparing for the Earth Summit. 1·3

From its inception there was little agreement within the INC as to what

action should be taken to avoid 'dangerous' climate change. Although the

1990 IPCC report stated that a cut in anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions

to less than 50% of 1990 levels would be needed to stabilize greenhouse gas

concentrations in the atmosphere, it did not say whether such a cut was

necessary in order to avoid significant, adverse impacts on mankind or on the

environment in general. Consequently, the key INC debates on what

commitments the convention should contain concerning emission limitations

were less well informed than they might have been. By the end of 1991 most

13 Earth Summit, Convention on Climate Change, UNCED, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3 -14 June 1992. Intro.

27

governments agreed that they wanted a climate convention to sign in Rio but

there was no agreement on the level of commitments that the agreement

should contain. Amongst the industrialized nations, for example, Germany

wanted substantial emission reduction in line with the Toronto Conference

(1988) targets, whereas the USA and UK were opposed to anything more than

emission stabilization. In essence, the UK and USA positions were that

cutting emissions, other than by energy saving measures, would be costly to

their economy and that they would therefore only commit to substantial

emission reductions if rapid and dangerous climate change was certain.

There was similar divergence amongst developing Nations with India

and China being opposed to emission reductions except in the northern

countries because that might impede their development, and the Alliance of

small Island states (AOSIS) being in favour of massive cuts. Saudi Arabia,

Kuwait and some Gulf nations, which had a declared interest in promoting the

burning of fossil fuels, were opposed to emission reductions of any sort

(Fossil fuel burning gives off carbon dioxide and account for well over half

the global warming potential of all anthropologenically emitted greenhouse

gases).

By the time ofthe last INC meeting, May 1992, before the Rio Summit

there was no consensus on many matters of importance, particularly on the

level of commitments that the convention should contain, and the draft treaty

was a mass of square brackets. 14 Real negotiations however began only in the

final months before UNCED. Given the public visibility of the UNCED

process, most delegations wished to have a convention to sign in Rio. Thus,

while it became clear in the spring of 1992 that the United States would not

accept definitive targets and time-tables, the Western States would insist on

some role for the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and that developing

countries would not accept strong commitments or implementation

machinery. Delegations finally got down to the hard work of crafting

14 Dunn, David H., n. 9, p. 225-226.

28

compromise language and produced a text that the INC adopted on the final

night ofthe negotiations. 15

After negotiations, which spanned 15 months, the United Nations

framework Convention on Climate Change was finalized in May 1992. It was

opened for signature at the UN Conference on Environment and Development

- the Earth Summit - in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on 4 June 1992. The

Convention came into force on 21 March 1994, 90 days after the necessary 50

countries had ratified it. As of 1 August 1994, 83 countries, including the

European Union, had ratified it.

The aim of this agreement is to stabilize atmospheric concentrations of

greenhouse gases at level that will prevent human activities from interfering

dangerously with the global climate system. In ratifying the Convention,

Governments agreed to reduce emissions of the warming greenhouse gases to

"earlier" levels by the end of the decade. States are required to report

periodically on their level of emissions and efforts to slow climate change.

The target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels by the end of

the decade- which was advocated by the European Community, Japan and

most other countries but opposed by the United States - is stated as a goal to

be met voluntarily. To enable developing countries to meet their obligations

under the convention, developed countries agree to provide 'new and

additional' financial assistance. Such assistance is, for the time being, to be

channeled through the Global Environment Facility, a fund administered

jointly by the World Bank, the UN Development Programme and the UN

Environment Programme. 16

United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity

Negotiations on the Convention on Biological Diversity began as an

ambitious attempt to conserve all of the World's species of plants and

15

16 Mintzer, Irving M., and Leonard, (ed.), J. A., no. 2, p. 61. Earth Summit, no. II, p. Introduction.

29

animals. The agreement was intended to ensure that natural biodiversity was

not lost by the actions of mankind and also to ensure the environmentally

sound management ofbiotechnology. 17

Negotiated under the'auspices of UN Environment Programme (UNEP), this

convention was aimed at preserving global biological diversity through the

protection of species and ecosystems. Since most of the threats were being

experienced in developing countries, and most biotechnology was based in

developed countries, discussions were again based around attempts to reach a

compromise between the needs of the two sides. 18

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) first called on

Governments to consider an international legal instrument for the

conservation and rational use of biological diversity in 1987. The following

year UNEP established an Adhoc Working Group of Experts on Biological

Diversity, which held three sessions between November 1988 and July 1990.

On the basis of the group's final report, UNEP established a Working Group

of Legal and Technical Experts to negotiate a convention. This group held

two sessions and was then renamed the Intergovernmental Negotiating

Committee(INC) for a Convention on Biological Diversity. The INC

completed negotiations for the Convention in five sessions between June 1991

and May 1992.19

The talks on the Convention quickly focused on the question of

biotechnology and the use of biological resources, rather than on the

protection of biodiversity per se, and consequently ran into trouble at the

outset. Arguments centered on the ownership of genetic resources and

particularly on the rights of the pharmaceutical industry and the budding

genetic technology companies in developed countries to exploit genetic

17

18

19

Dunn, D. H., no. 9, p. 226. McCormick, J., n. 11, p. 256. Earth Summit Convention on Biological Diversity, United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3- 14 June, 1992. Intro.

30

resources at what the developing countries regarded as a fairly low or even

negligible cost. As in the case of the climate talks, the INC on Biodiversity

eventually reached an impasse. The developed nations, led by the USA and

backed by the others including the UK, were unwilling to commit themselves

to making significant compensation payments for the use of genetic resources

from other nations, and the developing countries were generally insistent on

such payments. At the final INC (Nairobi, 11-19 May 1992) the commitments

section of the dra:(t convention was scrapped in order to reach consensus,

primarily at the instigation of the USA, which subsequently refused to sign

the Treaty in Rio. The Draft Article 4 (General Obligations) was removed

altogether and most remaining paragraphs that could be interpreted as

containing important obligations were precedence with its (the States')

particular conditions and capabilities. As· with the Climate Convention, the

Biodiversity Treaty might have been expected to flounder at this stage but,

again, it survived, albeit in a watered-down form, because of the political

imperative of the impending summit. 20

During the negotiations, contentious issues included: financial aid to

enable developing countries to implement the convention; the firms under

which industrialized countries would have access to genetic materials found

mostly in tropical forests in developing countries; the firms under which

developing countries would have access to environmentally sound technology

and to new biotechnologies developed from materials found in their tropical

forests; and the question of ownership and use of patent rights of the

biotechnology produced from such materials.

After negotiations were complete, a number of countries expressed

reservations on various aspects of the convention but later agreed to sign. It

was open for signature at the UN Conference on Environment and

Development- The Earth Summit- in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on 5 June 1992.

The Convention became legally binding on 29 December 1993,ss 90 days

20 Dunn, D. H., no. 9, p. 227.

31

after the required 30 countries had ratified it. As of 1 August 1994, 72

countries had ratified that Convention including the European Union.

The most important provisions of the Convention includes:

• The requirement that countries adopt regulations to conserve their

biological resources;

• The legal responsibility of Governments for the environmental

impact in other countries of activities by their private corporations;

• Functioning to assist developing countries in implementing the

convention, to be administered through the Global Environment

Facility, pending the establishment of a new institutional structure;

• The transfer of technology to developing countries on preferential

and concessional terms, where such transfer does not pr~judice

intellectual property rights or patents;

• Regulation ofbiotechnology firms;

• Access to and ownership of genetic material;

• Compensation to developing countries for extraction of their

genetic materials.21

The Forests Convention

The idea of a convention on forests was first mooted seriously in May

1990 by a committee chaired by Swedish Prime Minister Olsen, which was

reviewing the Tropical Forestry Action Plan (TFAP) for the Food and

Agriculture Organization (F AO). The concept was taken up by the G-7

economic summit meeting in Houston, Texas, in June 1990 after which the

heads of government called for a treaty to be negotiated in time for signing at

21 Earth Summit Convention on Biological Diversity, n. 19; p. (introduction).

32

UNCED. First the FAO Forestry Committee and then the FAO Council (its

supreme decision-making body) discussed a proposal for the Convention on

Forests drafted by the FAO Director General, Edouard Saouma. Initiallv the ~

idea was to develop the agreement within the framework of the FAO, as

nearly all treaties on flora and fauna have been since the Second World War.22

In 1990 a group of six countries in the North - Canada, France,

Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States - asked that a

third convention be negotiated on protecting the World's Forests. They had

in mind, in particular, the World's tropical rainforests, which are currently

vanishing at an estimated 17 million hectares a year, and are considered by

the North as valuable sink for greenhouse gases. What is often forgotten in

this equation is that the Northern forests were also sink for greenhouse gases

before they were cut down. Moreover, many Northern countries are also

planning to cut down their forests. For example, Canada and Russia are

currently cutting down the World's remaining boreal forests, Siberia alone

contains more forests than the Brazilian Amazon and since Russia turned

capitalist it has been signing logging agreements with corporations in virtually

every Northern country.

The talks on the forest convention drop down after the South refused to

give in to what it called a possible infringement on national sovereignty.

Malaysia was the major campaigner on behalf of Southern governments.

They argued that the convention on the protection of forests would jeopardize

their rights to their own resources.Z3 India's opposition had a different

motivation from that of Malaysia, the Indian government suspected that G-7

at the instigation of the USA, had proposed and supported a Forests

Convention as a way of avoiding taking significant action to reduce their

22

23 Dunn D. H., no. 9, p. 228. Chatterjee, p., and Finger, M., "The Earth Brokers, Power, Politics and World Development", Routledge, London and New York, 1994, p. 46.

33

greenhouse gas emission. 24 This fight in fact was not resolved and a forest

convention was postponed to the indefinite future.

In the end, no binding agreement was possible and a compromise

document was adopted in the form of a non-legally binding 'Statement of

Principles'. The full name of this document revealed something of the

disputes the parties had faced. The non-legally binding authoritative

statement of principles for a global consensus on the management,

conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests', hinted at

two victories for the tropical timber exporters. The document was non­

binding (but 'authoritative') and crucially did not limit itself to tropical issues,

but also sought to embrace boreal and temperate forests, i.e. those of North

America, Russia and Europe. One observer characterized the text as

'repetitive and regressive' clumsy and at times contradictory. The text firm

the value of forests both in economic and environmental firms, and also

identified the need for international action to meet the full costs ·of sustainable

forest management. While affirming free trade principles, the text also made

repeated references to the need for debt-reduction and financial assistance for

countries pursuing unsustainable practices. 25

Agenda 21

Agenda 21 was intended to be a set of guidelines on environment and

development issues for states to follow in the twenty-first century: a sort of

guiding principles of sustainable development. Drafting the Agenda was a

massive undertaking, verging on the unmanageable. Each nation was invited

to submit plans for inclusion in the document and the 'Major Groups' within

each country drafted these not only by national governments but also.26

24

25

26

Dunn. D. H., no. 9, p. 228.

Imber, M. F., no. 4. p. 100. Dunn, D. H., no. 9, p. 229.

34

Agenda 21 itself is a remarkable document in many respects. Given

that the formal plenary process at Rio placed so much emphasis upon the

general and the abstract, the document is, for the most part, a very detailed set

of recommendations. Its origins lie in successive UNCED Secretariat drafts

and, although divided into 40 chapters, which might imply sectoralism in

extremis, the document read as a whole is a blueprint of integrated policies for

sustainable development. It addresses issues of both constituencies -finance

and institutional reform. 27

The job of the four Prepcoms was then to amalgate these plans into a

single, coherent plan - which they did! The details of how this was achieved

and, indeed, the contents of the resulting 500 pages agreement is the subject

of a separate book.

Suffice it to say that the first Prepcom was held in Nairobi in August

1990, and by the fourth and final Prepcom in New York in 1992, 85 percent

of Agenda 21 was complete. The main chapter headings in the Agenda are as

follows:

Part I : Social and Economic Dimension

1) Preamble

2) International co-operation to accelerate sustainable development m

developing countries.

3) Combating poverty.

4) Changing consumption patterns.

5) Demographic dynamics and sustainability.

6) Protecting and promoting human health conditions.

27 Imber, M. F., no. 4, p. 103.

35

7) Promoting sustainable human settlement.

8) Integrating environment and development in decision-making.

Part II: Conservation and Management of Resourc~s for Development

9) Protection of the atmosphere.

10) Integrated approach to planning and management of land resources.

11) Combating deforestation.

12) Managing fragile ecosystems: combating desertification and drought.

13) Managing fragile ecosystems: sustainable mountain development.

14) Promoting sustainable agriculture and rural development.

15) Conversation of biological diversity.

16) Environmentally sound management of biotechnology.

17) Protection of the oceans, all kinds of seas, including enclosed and semi­

enclosed seas, and coastal areas.

18) Protection of the quality and supply of fresh water resources.

19) Environmentally sound management of toxic chemicals.

20) Environmentally sound management of hazardous wastes.

21) Environmentally sound management of solid waste and sewage related

issues.

22) Safe and environmentally sound management of radioactive wastes.

Part III: Strengthening Role of Major Groups

23) Preamble.

36

24) Global action for women towards sustainable and equable development.

25) Children and youth in sustainable development.

26) Recognizing and strengthening the role of indigenous people.

27) Strengthening the role of non-governmental organizations.

28) Local authorities' initiatives in support of Agenda 21.

29) Strengthening the role of workers and their trade unions.

30) Strengthening the role of business and industry.

31) Scientific and technological community.

32) Strengthening the role of the farmers.

Part IV: Means of Implementation

33) Financial resources and mechanisms.

34) Technology transfer.

35) Science for sustainable development.

36) Promoting education, public awareness and training.

37) National mechanisms and international co-operation for capacity building

in the developing countries.

3 8) International institutional arrangements.

39) International legal instruments and mechanisms.

40) Information for decision-making.28

28 Dunn, D. H., no. 9, pp. 229-230.

37 '

The 'Rio Declaration'.

Originally conceived as the environment and development equivalent

of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Maurice Strong first wanted to

call this document the 'Earth Charter'. At Prep Com III, the group of 77 (G-

77) decided that it did not like this name because it smacked too much of the

environment and not enough of its primary concern, i.e. development.

Despite the fact that the Earth Charter was probably what Maurice Strong was

most attached to G-77 prevailed and the document became watered down

from a charter to a declaration on environment and development.

The document attempts to lay out the duties and the rights of the states

and peoples towards the planet. It has twenty-seven principles - there were

originally supposed to be thirty-three - and officially complements the

Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, 1972. Like the other

elements of the Rio package, it is very much the consensus product of many

hours of bitter negotiations, mostly between government representatives. But

its twenty-seven principles probably reflect more clearly and more concisely

than any other Rio document the core philosophical assumptions and message

of the entire UNCED process, i.e. basically it is a blend between the

philosophy of the Brundtland report and the philosophy of the South

Commission's report. As such, the Rio declaration is a document that once

more reaffirms the quasi-religious belief in industrial development, seeks to

mobilize all human potential and natural resources to that effect, and reasserts

nation-states as the primary units to promote such development. Occasionally,

it expresses concern fhat environmental degradation might hurt further

prospects of development. But it is precisely the inclusion of such concerns

that is used to justify adding the adjective 'sustainable' to the term

'development' .29

29 Chatterjee, P., and Finger, M., no. 21, p. 49.

38

The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development consisted of 27

principles guiding action on environment and development, and building on

the Stockholm Declaration of 1972. The preparatory debates over the

declaration saw developing countries emphasizing development and equity,

while developed countries emphasized environmental concerns. Among the

contentions of the principles was the third, which affirmed the "right to

development", a clause intended to assure developing countries that their

basic development plans would not be slowed or compromised. The United

States issued a disclaimer, rejecting such a right on the grounds that it might

be used to override other rights (such as civil rights). 30

What all this adds up to is a clear recognition at Rio that economic

backwardness damages the environment, that the resources to overcome it must

come, at least in part, from the developed countries, and that until progress is

made, environmentalism will be a low priority in the majority of the world's

countries. Much of this was summed up in Rio Declaration, the over-arching

document expressing the spirit of the Rio gathering. Among 27 principles it

endorse is Principle Six which says "The special situation and needs of

developing countries, particularly the least developed and those most

environmentally vulnerable, shall be given special priority. International actions

in the field of environment and development should also address the interest and

needs of all countries".31

These statements, along with the South's success in resisting a forestry

treaty, marks some success by the developing countries in establishing its

priorities. On the other hand, the industrial countries showed, in their reluctance

to make the substantial financial commitments, that they have a separate set of

priorities in which environmental aids play only a small part. In the end,

therefore, the developing countries probably came out of Rio badly, but the final

judgment may not be feasible for several years as the results of this unique effort

trickles slowly through.

30

31 McCormick, T., no. 11, pp. 256-257. Earth Summit' 1992, UNCED, Rio de Janeiro 1992, p. 45.

39