The environment and global security

Abstract

The end of the Cold War heralded a vision of a New World Order; a new era of global security and co-operation. There was a belief that the system of collective security established in San Francisco in 1945 (at the founding of the United Nations) was finally beginning to work as conceived. As the strategic justification for a nuclear combat seemed to have evaporated, the new expectation was that international relations should now be conducted in the interest of global security. However, unfolding developments indicate that the end of the Cold War may not necessarily ensure global security. As the old order and the threat of a global nuclear holocaust collapsed, a new order has emerged with new perils, principal among these are the destruction and degradation of the environment. Since the 1970s, ecological movements and scientists have become increasingly aware that mankind is approaching limits to the burdens which it can load upon nature's capacity. This realisation led to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, which took place in Stockholm in June 1972, as the first major international effort to address the threat. The Earth's Summit of June 1992, and the resultant Rio Declaration emerged as the strongest attempts yet by the international community to address the issue of global environmental protection and safety, by demanding a spirit of global partnership in conserving, protecting, and restoring the health and integrity of the Earth's ecosystem. This was in realisation of the fact that the Earth is galloping towards a crisis of uncontrollable dimension, and therefore, needs to change course.