The history of international environmental law - Introduction to International Environmental Law - page 36

The Rio +20 follow-up conference (20-22 June 2012) was the fi rst UN
environmental conference with two distinct themes intended to develop the
agenda of sustainable development: the green economy and institutional
changes. The focal point in Rio +20 was on helping international environ-
mental protection work in a more coordinated way, avoiding overlapping
work by various environmental regimes. In an ideal world, this will help save
scarce resources and avoid contests between regimes as to who should be
responsible for each environmental protection operation. Another objective
was to identify synergies among international environmental regimes in
order to make best use of existing know-how by combining operations
instead of wasting resources. This is particularly expedient because the envi-
ronmental problems administered by the various different regimes are often
interconnected - that is, they should be administered in a coordinated way
(see, for instance, Chapter 5 , 'Connections between ozone depletion and
climate change', p. 168).
The preparatory process for Rio +20 clearly expressed the need to
improve the status and resources of the UN Environment Programme
(UNEP). Unfortunately, this follow-up meeting was only able to make
cosmetic changes: for example, UNEP's membership base was to be
expanded and the 'High Level Political Forum' was created along the
same lines as the Commission on Sustainable Development. The confer-
ence published a somewhat general document, entitled The Future We
Want . 45 In many ways Rio +20 must be seen as a disappointment,
perhaps even a type of mid-life crisis for international environmental law.
The outcome document pretty much repeats what has already been
agreed before and the institutional changes for the improvement of inter-
national environmental governance are moderate. Yet there are those
who argue that we can see positive things in Rio +20, in particular the
voluntary commitment from different types of actors to advance sustain-
able development.
Conclusions on the development of international
environmental law
If we examine the evolution of international environmental law more closely,
we can detect some contrasting trends. There is no denying that of any branch
of international law and policy, international environmental law has seen
enormous progress. The number of international treaties and soft-law instru-
ments is breathtaking, taking into consideration the comparatively short period
of time in which the discipline has developed. The sheer number of treaties
and other instruments has become problematic in itself; as a result, many
treaty regimes are actually carrying out overlapping work. Consequently, in
the last decade or so there have been increasing calls to move towards the
implementation of existing international environmental obligations, and trying