The history of international environmental law - Introduction to International Environmental Law - page 41

2003 The amended version of the African Convention on the Conservation

of Nature is adopted.

2006 The Framework Convention for the Protection of the Environment in

Central Asia is adopted.

2007 The Baltic Sea Action Plan, to control the protection of the Baltic Sea

until 2021, is adopted.

2009 A legal commitment for combating climate change is expected from

the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. In its absence, a
last-moment non-binding Copenhagen Accord is cobbled together
under the leadership of the USA.

2010 The Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity

(controlling access to and equitable sharing of the benefi ts arising
from genetic resources within national jurisdiction - genetic
material that is or can be valuable) is opened for signature.

2012 The Rio 20-year follow-up conference (Rio +20) takes place. Its central

themes are green economy and institutional decisions.

Questions and research tasks
1 Many experts see the UNCED as the pinnacle of international environ-
mental politics and law. Why do they think so? Why, on the other hand,
do some critics consider it a failure, although the conference adopted two
conventions, a declaration, Agenda 21 and the Forest Principles? How do
you consider the UNCED to have infl uenced the participation in inter-
national environmental politics of actors other than states? What about
Rio +20? Read Tzeming Yang's ASIL Insights piece, 'The UN Rio +20
Conference on Sustainable Development - What Happened?', and Gro
Harlem Brundtland's discussion piece 'Rio +20 didn't go far enough - what
now?' How would you evaluate the merits of the Rio +20 after reading
these two very different views on what the conference achieved or not.
2 What do you fi nd most important about the UN conferences? Consider
other ways in which international environmental protection and sustain-
able development could be promoted globally. Find the Earth Charter
Initiative on the internet. Could this be a prospect for the international
community? How would you evaluate what should be the role of the
most powerful current international organization, the World Trade
Organization, in environmental protection?
3 Was the emergence of sustainable development in the 1980s an inevitable
trend, or could another general principle have been better or more realistic
from the point of view of environmental protection? Find the World
Charter for Nature drafted by the International Union for Conservation
of Nature (IUCN) online. It was approved by the UN General Assembly
in 1982. Could its principles have functioned in the Rio Earth Summit