The history of international environmental law - Introduction to International Environmental Law - page 25

was established (Articles 1(3) and 55). This was followed in 1948 by the UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. 2 Over the years, many binding inter-
national human rights agreements have been concluded under the auspices of
the UN. Not one of these international agreements, however, explicitly refers
to the right to a decent or healthy environment, although some regional
human rights agreements, such as the African Charter on Human and People's
Rights, do expressly mention the right to a healthy environment. 3
This goes to show how little attention was paid to environmental protection
in the aftermath of the Second World War. This was understandable, as at this
period in time the signifi cance to human communities of ecosystems and the
biosphere was not yet widely understood and the international community
was concerned with other priorities. On the other hand, events of the Second
World War demonstrated only too well that humankind had developed terri-
ble powers of destruction that could eliminate our entire world. For in invent-
ing atomic weapons, such as those used by the United States on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, Japan, we had created the potential to destroy life on our planet
as we know it.
The rise of the former colonies
The evolution of human rights saw the colonial policies of European govern-
ments being questioned. The UN Charter had declared that all peoples are
equal. In the 1950s, many African and Asian colonies took matters into their
own hands and fought for independence from their European colonial rulers.
The resulting paradigm shift in the participants in the international community
saw a change in the nature of international law itself; it guaranteed sovereignty
and independence to all those colonies that sought it.
As African and Asian countries became independent, they formed a stronger
voice in international politics and law. This was especially manifest in the UN
General Assembly, where each of the UN member states have one vote; the
developing countries as a group were able to work for the reversal of coloniza-
tion and to promote the so-called New International Economic Order (NIEO).
One important result was that these newly independent developing countries
were able to claim permanent sovereignty over the natural resources in their
territories. Many of these newly independent developing countries now began
to nationalize projects in their territories under which Western companies had
previously exploited their natural resources. The former colonizing Western
states responded by demanding compensation to their companies for the losses
incurred, but the developing countries were not prepared to pay.
The infl uence of African and Asian governments increased in international
politics and law in the 1960s and 1970s. At a time when interest in environ-
mental protection was being awakened with initiatives such as the Declaration
of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in 1972, 4
developing countries continued to concentrate on promoting the implemen-
tation of the NIEO. In 1973, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting