Greening the United Nations: Future Conditional?

Abstract

Conventional wisdom on the pursuit of environmental security suggests two things: first, that it can be achieved through better or even global governance, and second, that the United Nations is best placed to provide this improved governance. These have become axioms, little explored or challenged. It seems appropriate, then, to consider how the United Nations has grappled with an issue which simply was not a matter for international concern SO years ago and which was not incorporated in the UN’s mandate. This chapter begins with a brief survey of the environmental agenda and then proceeds to examine the ]global governance debate through an analysis of the ‘inadequate state’, the critique of sovereignty and the imperatives for comprehensive security. The second section of the chapter explores the way in which environmental security issues have been pursued within the United Nations, with an emphasis on the UNCED process. The third section provides a critical analysis of those processes and explores proposals for reforming the United Nations to make it more receptive to the imperatives of environmental security. The final section returns to the themes of sovereignty and global governance, suggesting that within the UN system, global environmental governance may well be little more than sovereignty with a kinder, gentler face and therefore, limited as a framework or informing paradigm for achieving environmental security.