Rio Declaration Research Articles

Implementing the precautionary principle

The precautionary principle can be found in international treaties that protect human health and the environment from a variety of pollutants and perturbations. One of the earliest forms of the precautionary principle was used in the 1980s in Europe to protect the North Sea. In 1992, the Rio Declaration specifically included the precautionary principle in calling on nations to protect the environment. The US articulation that best embodies this approach to environment and human health protection is the Wingspread statement: ‘When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken, even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.’ The key element is the matter of acting in the face of uncertainty. Applications of the precautionary principle are not, however, new to US environmental policy and management. The present paper uses case studies to examine the application of the precautionary principle to environmental decisions. These cases range from ecosystem protection on the Charles River, Massachusetts, to the effort to prevent computer crashes at the end of the year 2000. These cases deal with the problem of uncertainty, whether concerning the cause, effect, systemic condition or multiple factors. Uncertainty represents one of the features that provoke controversy over these issues and the precautionary principle.

Book Review: Consuming cities: the urban environment in the global economy after the Rio declaration.

Book Review: Consuming cities: the urban environment in the global economy after the Rio declaration.

Reviews: Scholar's Choice: Modern Geographical Thought, Consuming Cities: The Urban Environment in the Global Economy after the Rio Declaration, between Woman and Nation: Nationalisms, Transnational Feminisms, and the State, the Postmodern Urban Condition, Even in Sweden: Racisms, Racialized Spaces and the Popular Geographical Imagination

Reviews: Scholar's Choice: Modern Geographical Thought, Consuming Cities: The Urban Environment in the Global Economy after the Rio Declaration, between Woman and Nation: Nationalisms, Transnational Feminisms, and the State, the Postmodern Urban Condition, Even in Sweden: Racisms, Racialized Spaces and the Popular Geographical Imagination

An eye on the modern century: the selected letters of Henry McBride

Philippe Sands has extensively revised this leading textbook to include all new developments since 1994, including all the international case-law (ICJ, ITLOS, WTO, human rights etc.) and new international legislation (genetically modified organisms, the Kyoto Protocol, oil pollution, chemicals etc.). It is the most comprehensive account of the principles and rules relating to the protection of the environment and the conservation of natural resources. It incorporates all the key material from the 1992 Rio Declaration and subsequent developments. Topics include: the legal and institutional framework; the field's historic development; standards for general application in addition to the protection of the atmosphere, oceans etc.; the techniques available for implementation such as the environmental impact assessment and liability/compensation for environmental damage. It will be used on its own as an academic course text, as well as a reference text for practitioners.

To Do No Harm? The Precautionary Principle and Moral Values

From over 2000 years ago the ideal expressed in the Hippocratic Oath has encouraged doctors never knowingly to do harm: primum non nocere. Over 25 years ago the management writer Peter Drucker proposed it as the basis of a management ethic, ‘the right rule for the ethics managers need, the ethics of responsibility’.1 He argued then that the rule had wide scope encompassing for instance executive compensation, management rhetoric and the management of business impacts. In 2000 the United Nations Global Compact embodied a Principle 7 enjoining ‘a precautionary approach to environmental challenges’ as defined in Principle 15 of the 1992 Rio Declaration. But what can such precautionary injunctions mean in practice? And what of conflicts with other values? Robin Attfield lays out the key questions he argues need to be asked about the Precautionary Principle if it is to be taken seriously and acted upon soundly. His focus is on the management of vulnerable resources — specifically planetary ecosystems — with whose management knowingly or otherwise we are all concerned.

Sustainability appraisal for sustainable development: integrating everything from jobs to climate change

The United Kingdom Government's objectives-based approach to sustainability appraisal is critically examined, and is shown to create difficulties in distinguishing between what is appraisal and what is planning. A criterion-based variation is described, which is based on the principles of sustainable development as set out in the Rio Declaration. This offers promise of considerably simplifying the appraisal process, and at the same time focusing it more sharply on key sustainable development issues. The modified approach highlights those aspects of sustainable development that are particularly difficult to achieve in practice.

Consuming Cities: The Urban Environment in the Global Economy after the Rio Declaration

Consuming Cities: The Urban Environment in the Global Economy after the Rio Declaration

The Marine Environment Protection Committee: The Conjunction of the Law of the Sea and International Environmental Law

AbstractThis article outlines the work of the Marine Environment Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organization in implementing measures to protect the marine environment and to conserve natural resources called for in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and international environmental law, in particular as set forth in Agenda 21 and the Rio Declaration, both products of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development. In so doing, the paper examines IMO's collaboration with other intergovernmental organisations and UN bodies, such as the FAO, UNEP, the Commission on Sustainable Development and the United Nations, as well as with the secretariats of multilateral environmental agreements, such as the Basel Convention and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Although the work of IMO is frequently overlooked because it is an older organisation, the treaties, codes and guidelines developed by the MEPC have made an essential and valuable contribution to the progressive development of international environmental law, as well as to the law of the sea.

Transparency in 21st century fisheries management: Options for public participation to enhance conservation and management of international fish stocks

Effective implementation of international environmental and natural resource conservation agreements depends not only upon the cooperation of contracting parties, but also upon the ability of the agreement to win the continuing support and input of non‐governmental stakeholders. This view, accepted and advocated by nations in the 1992 Rio Declaration, Agenda 21, and the recent Aarhus Convention on Public Participation, is now being incorporated into modern regional fisheries management organizations. These and earlier fisheries organizations can benefit from an awareness of how other multilateral agreements that adhere to the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 tenets have enhanced sustainable development through their provisions for transparency and public participation. This article surveys how these regimes have implemented the principles of access to information, access to decision‐making and access to justice, and makes corresponding recommendations to assist fisheries management organizations in achieving their goals.

LOW Nicholas, GLEESON Brendan, ELANDER Ingemar, LIDSKOG Rolf (eds), 2000, Consuming Cities. The Urban Environment in the Global Economy after the Rio Declaration, New-York : Routledge, 315 p.

It remains a strong bad flavor from the 1992 Rio Summit and Agenda 21, endorsed by 178 governments : the flavor of fast growing metropolitan areas keeping on consuming the environment, developing without consideration for their impact on the environment. The fourteen papers compiled in this book examine the impact of the Rio Declaration (Agenda 21 and Local Agenda 21) on national and local urban policies. But the papers all assess the gap between the official Rio rhetorical discourse and the ...

Reviews: The Burden of History: Colonialism and the Frontier Myth in a Rural Canadian Community, the Drive-in, the Supermarket, and the Transformation of Commercial Space in Los Angeles, 1914–1941, Consuming Cities: The Urban Environment in the Global Economy after the Rio Declaration, Changing Suburbs: Foundation, Form and Function

Reviews: The Burden of History: Colonialism and the Frontier Myth in a Rural Canadian Community, the Drive-in, the Supermarket, and the Transformation of Commercial Space in Los Angeles, 1914–1941, Consuming Cities: The Urban Environment in the Global Economy after the Rio Declaration, Changing Suburbs: Foundation, Form and Function

The Changing Nature of ‘Environmental Protection’: Recent Developments Regarding Trade and the Environment in the European Union and the World Trade Organization

Despite almost universal recognition within the international community of the importance of international environmental law, many complex issues continue to elude an appropriate legal response. A particularly controversial issue – and one that is proving increasingly difficult to resolve – is the question of how to reconcile the principle of environmental protection with that of free trade. Moreover, despite such positive platitudes as that contained within the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, nation states are quickly discovering that the issue is not simply one of abstract interest, but is actually beginning to influence both their domestic and international regulatory behaviour. This article seeks to present a broad overview of this issue as it relates to the European Union (EU) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). In particular, the article will critically discuss some of the more recent jurisprudence on this issue arising from these two, very different, ‘groupings’ of states. As will be noted, there are important similarities and differences between each ‘grouping’ in terms of its approach. And, of course, whilst it is acknowledged that many of these differences can be resolved by reference to the different aims and objectives of the different ‘groupings’, nevertheless, this article will try to move beyond a strictly comparative approach of the issues, and place them in a broader analytical framework. This is not an attempt to show which approach is ‘best’, but rather, to highlight the tensions between environmental protection and free trade.

The Precautionary Principle: A European Perspective

The ‘precautionary principle’, as formulated in the 1992 Rio Declaration on Environ ment and Development, calls for regulatory action in the face of serious environmental risks even in the absence of full scientific certainty. This paper traces negotiation of the principle at the Rio Conference, and its history in Europe from 1969 Swedish legislation to the latest directives of the European Union. As illustrated by recent court cases from Germany and France, in particular (on nuclear power plants, electro magnetic fields, and genetically modified organisms), judicial interpretation of the principle has tended to be restrictive. Future law making in this field is likely to focus on public access to environmental risk information, and on the development of new ‘right to know’ instru ments such as mandatory product labelling and transnational pollutant release inven tories, an area where Europe can still learn from North American experience.

If only life were that simple; optimism and pessimism in economics

The Rio declaration's assertion that water is an economic good simply raises the question of what this means in practice. Two extremes of economic approaches to this question are compared and contrasted in terms of the ways in which they frame different management issues about water. The optimistic or Panglossian approach sees the problem as involving no more than applying text book economic theory; the pessimistic or Pragmatic approach see the role of economics as being to clarify the nature of the decision that must be made. These differences tell us something about economics but more importantly about the management of water.

The precautionary principle and its practice

The law relating to the regulation and safety of nuclear facilities has been a model for the development of the general environmental law. One of the pillars of sustainable development as set down in principle 15 of the Rio Declaration embodies the precautionary approach, which gives rise to the precautionary principle. This article identifies the basis of the precautionary principle and the law implementing the principle in the European Union.

The environment and global security

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.

The frames of global environmental policy in UNCED: No alternatives to construct social reality?

In the article the authors analyse the formation of global environmental policy using Klaus Eder's frame analysis. The analysis is focused on Rio de Janeiro's Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 of UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) as well as on the political negotiation processes that led to the formation of global environmental policy in 1992. The authors point out that there are many alternative ways to create social reality. In Rio Declaration and in Agenda 21, free market environmentalism and political realism formed the framework in constructing social reality based on factual framing devises. This construction of the master frame was carried out by political and business sector leaders. From the evolutionary perspective of the futures research one can point out that the master frame of global environmental policy is just one possible development path/scenario for the world economy. The authors analyse in the article in detail, what kind of alternatives to economic theory‐based or institutionally relevant development scenarios were framed out in the Rio process. In order to boost a real choice in favour of socio‐cultural evolution the authors conclude that it might be wise to create some alternative development scenarios for sustainable future instead of just one dominant baseline development scenario, which is now dominating the environmental policy debate. The authors point out that the global environmental policy of the 1990's is mostly based on Western cultural imperialism and on the neoclassical economic paradigm—not on cultural diversity and on evolutionary future alternatives.

Environmental Education, Ethics and Citizenship Conference, Held at the Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers), 20 May 1998

The search for a worldwide environmental ethic is linked to the increase in environmental concern since (particularly) the 1960s, and the recognition that environmental problems can have a global impact. Numerous people and organizations have put forward their understanding of the necessary components of such an ethic and these have converged in a series of international statements (Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, 1972; World Charter for Nature, 1982; Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, 1992; International Covenant on Environment and Development, 1995). A small number of common elements have emerged. These can be expressed in 10 ‘premises’, which may form the basis for developing into an acceptable worldwide ethic, along the lines called for in the revised World Conservation Strategy, Caring for the Earth, 1991.

Environmental education, ethics and citizenship conference, held at the royal geographical society (with the institute of British geographers), 20 may 1998

AbstractThe search for a worldwide environmental ethic is linked to the increase in environmental concern since (particularly) the 1960s, and the recognition that environmental problems can have a global impact. Numerous people and organizations have put forward their understanding of the necessary components of such an ethic and these have converged in a series of international statements (Stockholm Declaration on the Human Environment, 1972; World Charter for Nature, 1982; Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, 1992; International Covenant on Environment and Development, 1995). A small number of common elements have emerged. These can be expressed in 10 ‘premises’, which may form the basis for developing into an acceptable worldwide ethic, along the lines called for in the revised World Conservation Strategy, Caring for the Earth, 1991.

Sustainable Development and the Search for a Better Environment, a Better World: A Work in Progress

I. INTRODUCTION In the ever-evolving development of sustainable development(1) principles and norms, various analytical approaches have emerged, all with the aim of providing a conceptual framework which embodies the often competing issues of and national environmental protection and conservation, human rights and economic development. At the global level, the North-South(2) dynamic has been an inherent component of these scholarly, political and economic discussions, most of which have examined or sought to achieve consensus on the accommodation of what is fair, just and equitable. The task has not been an easy one, to say the least. One approach has involved the examination and development of a right to environment from a human rights perspective in an attempt to formulate further the environmental law paradigm which is now inherently interwoven with sustainable development principles. Notwithstanding this valiant and on-going attempt to integrate environmental protection objectives with human rights principles, this paper considers the extent to which the collective human right to development is found in the environmental law context of sustainable development. With the aim of continuing and expanding the discussion on sustainable development, this paper focuses on the extent to which specific human rights are integrated into three of the texts that emerged out of the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development (Rio de Janeiro, June 1992) (UNCED)(3). It is a departure from current analytical approaches which have defined the existence of environmental human rights within the context of the existing human rights regime. Specifically this paper examines some of the right to development provisions of the Rio Declaration, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). These collective human rights provide another dimension to environmental protection that is at the core of sustainable development. Both the right to environment and the right to development find their bases in human rights. Both speak to human dignity and the quality of life. First, Part II of this article examines the development and existence of the right to environment. Its evolution is inherently based upon human rights principles and norms. Its current anthropocentric characterization is not without its opponents who argue in favor of a more ecocentric focus. Next, Part III explores the evolution of the right to development. As with the right to environment,(4) the right to development is inherently interwoven with human rights considerations, and is ultimately integrated into sustainable development instruments that strive to meet environmental protection and economic development objectives in a fair and equitable way. This part surveys relevant documents, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations' New International Economic Order (NIEO) resolutions, the Stockholm Declaration and the UNCED texts, all of which reflect the evolution of the intersection of human rights, the right to development and environmental protection. Finally, Part IV examines the common goals of environmental protection, economic development and human rights. It is precisely these linkages that provide a positive and optimistic perspective to the outcomes of UNCED and in the end, another basis for the hopeful furtherance of, and commitment to, the global equity that is the fundamental promise of sustainable development. II. ENVIRONMENTAL HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE RIGHT TO ENVIRONMENT A. Human Rights Linkages Although the international community has already spilled much ink and consumed forests of paper developing environmental instruments which hold substantial promise for alleviating some environmental problems, those instruments have not done enough. …