The history of international environmental law - Introduction to International Environmental Law - page 38

A new way of making sustainable
development politics
Finnish President Tarja Halonen, together with Namibian President Sam
Nujoma, led the preparatory process for the UN Millennium Summit. The
Millennium Declaration was adopted by the UN General Assembly and 189
governments committed themselves to its goals. It contains eight very specifi c
objectives, including the objective to halve the global proportion of those whose
income is less than one dollar a day between 1990 and 2015, and the objective
to guarantee primary schooling to all children, boys and girls alike, by 2015. The
implementation of these summit goals was subsequently reviewed in the 2005
World Summit and in the 2010 Summit on the Millennium Goals.
This represents a new model for the advancement of sustainable development:
by adopting a single politically binding document, which nevertheless defi nes
precise targets and deadlines for reaching them.
The World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002
(WSSD) confi rmed the millennium goals but new environmental goals were
also adopted, such as that by 2020 we will only use and produce chemicals that
will not have signifi cant adverse effects on human health and the environment;
and that by 2010, we would achieve a signifi cant reduction in the current rate
of loss of biological diversity. Unfortunately, however, this second goal was not
achieved.
There are critics of such distinct goal-setting, as it is clear from the outset
that they will be diffi cult to achieve. On the other hand, this kind of genuinely
global politics with precise goals certainly gives the international community a
very practical direction, at least promoting a change for the better. The Rio +20
conference preparation concentrated on principles of sustainable development
that focused on specifi c goals.
It is not easy to assess how the inclusion of international environmental
protection in the general sustainable development agenda has promoted
environmental protection itself. But environmental protection cannot and
should not be separated from the wider goals of sustainable development.
Arranging the Rio 20-year follow-up conference was in itself a way of imple-
menting the environment-friendly Agenda 21 that commenced for real in
Rio. However, it can be argued that the concept of sustainable development
has become rather watered down over the years. Social and economic agendas
have diverted our attention from the fact that functioning ecosystems are the
prerequisite for human development. Perhaps sustainable development is too
broad a term and too easily accepted, and this has led to initiatives that are
economically benefi cial in the short term, but questionable from the long-
term perspective of the environment.
One advantage of the sustainable development agenda has been that inter-
national lawyers have recognized that their issues and concerns cannot be
considered in isolation. The values and objectives of free trade, with its often