Monitoring The UN > The UN and Sustainable Development

History

In the years immediately following the Second World War, economists and policy-makers in the countries of the North viewed technologically-based and consumer-oriented economic growth as the path to a global future of prosperity and security for all. Few thought to question whether this concept could be reconciled with environmental realities.¹

By the late 1960s, however, it was becoming clear that technology and economic growth were not always or inevitably positive. While it could not be denied that significant material improvements had been made in the lives of millions, economic development, as it was being practiced in the industrialized and industrializing countries, was producing potentially tragic side-effects in the form of pollution and resource depletion.² As early as 1962, the use of agricultural pesticides had come into question when their toxic nature was pointed out by Rachel Carson, in a book entitled "Silent Spring."³ As time went on, popular environmental movements emerged, reinforced by scientific evidence of the vulnerability of the biosphere and the deleterious effects of wasteful consumption patterns. National and international debates arose over the need for a more rational approach to development.⁴

In 1971, a group of experts meeting in Switzerland concluded that environmental and development strategies should be integrated and that, while the alarm had been raised over damage to the biosphere resulting from economic activities in the developed countries, social and economic conditions in the Third World (the South) were also contributing to the crisis.⁵ In 1972, pollution problems in northern Europe prompted the United Nations to call an international meeting in Stockholm, Sweden. The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, as this meeting was called, attempted to find a compromise between economic prerogatives and ecological imperatives. The conclusion was that economic growth was well and good, but it needed to be environmentally sustainable and equitable in terms of human benefits.⁶

Responding to and reflecting the burgeoning ecological consciousness of the 1960s, the Stockholm conference was the first formal international involvement with development in relation to the environment. In the same year, 1972, the Club of Rome, an organization of European economists and scientists, released a report, "Limits to Growth," where it was suggested that if current economic patterns continued, the world would soon experience ecological disaster.⁷ People were realizing that the limits of environmental tolerance for human interference were being reached and if action was not taken, the future of the world would be in question.⁸

In the wake of Stockholm, the United Nations assumed a directing and coordinating role in efforts to raise international environmental awareness through its network of associations with member states, non-governmental organizations and the world business and scientific communities, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) was formed. However, by the 1980s, resource depletion and environmental problems were worsening, and they were no longer local, national, or even regional - they were global.⁹

In 1983, the United Nations called for a high level commission of enquiry. Over the next three years the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), commonly known as the Brundtland Commission, held public hearings and studied the problem. Its report, "Our Common Future," published in 1987, stressed the need for development strategies in all countries that recognized the limits of the ecosystem's ability to regenerate itself and absorb waste products.¹⁰ Recognizing "an accelerating ecological interdependence among nations," the commission emphasized the link between economic development and environmental issues and identified poverty eradication as a necessary and fundamental requirement for environmentally sustainable development.¹¹ It called for a fundamental rethinking of norms of human behaviour and an acceptance of the notion that if progress were to be made, it must be progress that takes account of the right of all people to pursue their potential. Imbalances in wealth and opportunity deprived too many people of the freedom of choice necessary to replace short-term expediency in the name of survival with long-term planning founded upon wise and rational environmental management. Development should not benefit the few at the expense of the many, or the future.

While adding nothing conceptually new to the development and environment debate, the Brundtland Commission popularized the term 'sustainable development,' describing it as "a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development, and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspiration."¹² The international community was inspired with a sense of the immediate and pressing need for action but, again, conditions only got worse.¹³ Most alarming, perhaps, was the discovery in the mid-1980s of a hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, and the prospect of global warming from the build-up of greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere.¹⁴

Throughout this period, the membership of the United Nations had been undergoing a transformation. In its early years the organization had been dominated by the industrialized countries, particularly the victorious Allies of World War Two. From the mid-1950s on, the emerging, newly-independent states of the formerly dependent or colonized Third World entered in increasing numbers and, with time, became a force in the General Assembly. The shift in perspective which accompanied this changing membership made itself felt in the development and environment debate. Third World countries intended to develop and industrialize, and indeed had that right. Concerned that environmental anxiety in the already highly industrialized nations of the North would deprive them of the opportunities for economic growth that they so badly needed to lift their people out of poverty, they began to press the notion that if future development was to be environmentally viable, there would have to be a fundamental alteration in the North-South relationship, particularly as applied to international trade and finance.

At the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the international community acknowledged the concerns and special problems of the developing countries. It also turned a corner. Known as the 'Earth Summit,' this conference built upon the concerns of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment and the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (the Brundtland Commission). When the meetings were over, 182 governments had formally accepted the need for change by agreeing to the 27 principles enshrined in the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and adopting the global agenda for action on sustainable development represented by the forty-chapter Agenda 21. Out of this conference, too, came the Statement of Principles on the Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development of all Types of Forests, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, and a recommendation for an international convention on desertification.¹⁵

The reinvigorated sustainable development project was to be led by the United Nations. A high level functional Commission, the Commission on Sustainable Development, was set up to coordinate and supervise implementation of the Rio Agreements and to monitor progress. The existing United Nations Environment Programme was reinforced - it would continue to coordinate scientific and political work through the various agencies associated with the United Nations system. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) would promote 'capacity building' in developing countries, helping them to lay the groundwork for development.¹⁶ Global progress on sustainable development was to be reviewed in a special session of the General Assembly in 1997.

The United Nations, with its established global machinery, its commitment to international cooperation and coordination, and its experience in the area of development, is ideally suited to oversee the sustainable development programme. The sort of change called for by the Rio Agreements cannot be left entirely to the initiative of individual governments or agencies - individual action will not remedy a problem that is worldwide.¹⁷ The organization of the United Nations also contains the cross-sectoral facility needed to reflect the inseparable nature of social, economic and political issues in any approach to sustainable development.

After the Rio conference, the United Nations permeated its entire structure with sustainable development priorities and worked to facilitate or bring about international agreements and legal instruments incorporating the principles adopted there. Its member states pledged to reflect the UNCED agenda in their institutions, policies and international relationships, ensuring that the environmental and global impact of their decisions are considered. Only through national adherence to the principles of Rio and the recommendations of Agenda 21, can sustainable development be realized. Non-governmental organizations, as well as business, scientific and civil communities are also required to participate.¹⁸

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¹ see Herman E. Daly, Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996) 6 - 8; and Anil Markandya and Julie Richardson, eds., The Earthscan Reader in Environmental Economics (London: Earthscan Publications, 1992) 7.
²Markandya and Richardson, 7; and Mihaly Simai, forward, The North the South: Ecological Constraints and the Global Economy by V. Bhaskar and Andrew Glyn, eds., (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1995) xi.
³International Institute for Sustainable Development web site: http://iisd.ca/timeline
⁴Ibid.
⁵Ibid.
⁶Ignacy Sachs, "The Environmental Challenge," Ch. 9 of The Uncertain Quest: Science, Technology and Development by Jean-Jacques Salomon, Francisco R. Sagasti and Celine Sachs-Jeantet, eds. (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1994) 308.
⁷Sachs, 308.
⁸Ibid, 320.
⁹Jean-Jacques Salomon, Francisco R. Sagasti, and Celine Sachs-Jeantet, "Introduction: From Tradition to Modernity," introduction of The Uncertain Quest: Science, Technology and Development by Salomon, Sagasti and Sachs-Jeantet, eds. (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1994) 17-18.
¹⁰World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987) 43.
¹¹Ibid, 3-5.
¹²Ibid, 46.
¹³Markandya and Richardson, 18; and Sachs, 312.
¹⁴IISD website (Timeline)
¹⁵"Earth Summit Approves Agenda 21, Rio Declaration: Record Number of World Leaders Attend," UN Chronicle 29.3 (Sept. 1992) 59-63.
¹⁶Michael Grubb, Matthias Koch, Abby Munson, Francis Sullivan, Koy Thomson, The Earth Summit Agreements: A Guide and Assessment (London: Earthscan Publications Ltd., 1993) 41-42.
¹⁷see Chadwick F. Alger, "The United Nations in Historical Perspective," in The United Nations System: The Policies of Member States, Chadwick F. Alger, Gene M. Lyons, and John E. Trent, eds. (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 1995); David Runnalls and Aaron Cosbey, Trade and Sustainable Development: A Survey of the Issues and a New Research Agenda (Winnipeg: International Institute for Sustainable Development; Institute for Research on Trade Policy, 1992) 11; and Bhaskar and Glyn, The North the South, 4.
¹⁸Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade web site.