The history of international environmental law - Introduction to International Environmental Law - page 31

The focus of environmental regulation relatively soon turned to global
environmental problems: climate change and ozone depletion. In 1985, the
Vienna Convention 24 sought to address ozone depletion by means of general
obligations, but the discovery of a vast Antarctic ozone hole really awakened
people to the problem later the same year. The reduction and elimination of
chlorofl uorocarbons or CFC compounds has proceeded rapidly since the 1987
Montreal Protocol. 25
Climate change, loss of biodiversity and the poor state of the world's forests
were on the UN agenda when the 20-year follow-up meeting to the
Stockholm Conference was arranged in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. There was
still some scepticism as to the scientifi c evidence for climate change, so the
World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the UNEP established the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988.
The separate negotiating processes proceeded rapidly before the Rio
Summit, but developing countries now assumed a much more active role than
in the Stockholm Conference. A major confrontation between the richer
North and the poorer South related to the protection of tropical rainforests -
'the lungs of our planet'. As these forests are of utmost importance for both
biological diversity and for combating climate change - and as they are being
destroyed at an accelerating rate - it was essential from the point of view of
the North to reach an agreement to allow for better protection of the rainfor-
ests. From the perspective of the developing countries, however, this was
viewed as a neo-colonialist strategy to limit their economic growth. Since the
1992 UNCED took place in Brazil, the home of the Amazon rainforest, it was
apparent that no easy solution could be found. The industrial countries' objective
to protect the rainforests by means of a strict climate agreement or a binding
forest agreement was not achieved. However, much was accomplished in Rio
among the 178 participating states:

1 The Rio Declaration: the most authoritative declaration thus far, which

records the principles of international environmental law. A signifi cant
point is that the Rio Declaration actually refl ects a compromise between
the poorer South and the richer North.

2 Agenda 21, which records an environmental protection action plan for

the next century in a total of 40 chapters.

3 Non-binding forest principles: there was an effort to negotiate an interna-

tional agreement, but the political will was lacking.

4 Opening the Framework Convention on Climate Change for signature.

5 Opening the Convention on Biological Diversity for signature.

The Rio Conference further achieved a tentative agreement on the conserva-
tion and management of straddling fi sh stocks and highly migratory fi sh
stocks 26 and on negotiations for an agreement to combat desertifi cation; 27
these international agreements were adopted in 1994 and 1995. An example