Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
either. In fact, UNCED was a conference conceived in one geopolitical
paradigm and executed in another; it reflected the influences of both.
Commissioned in 1989 by the U.N. General Assembly, the U.N. Con-
ference on Environment and Development was designed as a follow-up—
twenty years later— to the U.N. Conference on the Human Environment.
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In the three years of preparations leading up to the summit, UNCED plan-
ners developed five major objectives. First, conference planners hoped to
reinforce the conclusions of the 1972 Declaration on the Human Environ-
ment with an international Earth Charter, a statement of principles built
upon the 1948 U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
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Second, as
a practical guide for implementing these principles, UNCED introduced
Agenda 21, a document that detailed recommendations for dealing with
the endemic problems of environment and development identified at the
Stockholm Conference and since then. Third, a subset of UNCED partici-
pants, including the United States and many Latin American countries,
sought to create a nonbinding set of “forest principles” that would under-
pin a future binding convention on managing the earth's forest resources.
These nonbinding principles were accompanied by two binding conven-
tions— UNCED's fourth and fifth objectives— one a binding framework
convention on biodiversity, the other a binding framework convention on
climate change: the UNFCCC. Beyond these five main components, the
conference would also host discussions on a spate of related (and contro-
versial) “cross-sectoral” topics that included population growth, technol-
ogy transfer, the role of women and indigenous populations in sustainable
development policies, and the relationship among poverty, human settle-
ment, and environmental degradation.
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From the beginning, the 1992 Rio Earth Summit shared many of the
characteristics of the 1972 Stockholm Conference. For starters, the U.N.
General Assembly tapped none other than Maurice Strong, the same
Canadian businessman who had headed the 1972 Stockholm meeting, to
serve as secretary-general for Rio. He faced many of the same frustrating
environmental problems originally addressed in Stockholm— deforesta-
tion, toxic waste disposal, desertification and other land-use issues, and
species extinction, among others. Perhaps more important, he also faced
many of the same political obstacles.
In particular, the Stockholm Conference had left the rift between
the developed and developing worlds over priorities and strategies for
