The Effectiveness of International Law in "Greening" the Economy

This panel was convened at 9:00 am, Saturday, April 12, by its moderator, Elizabeth Dowdeswell of the Council of Canadian Academies, who introduced the panelists: Rebecca Bratspies of the City University of New York School of Law; Dan Esty of Yale University; Markus Gehring of the University of Cambridge; and Kamal Hossain of Dr. Kamal Hossain & Associates. * THE EFFECTIVENESS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW IN GREENING THE ECONOMY: CHALLENGES FOR THE DEVELOPED AND DEVELOPING WORLD By Kamal Hossain ([dagger]) The challenge facing the international community--that of furthering economic development while at the same time protecting the environment--has only grown more formidable since it was identified at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. In the twenty years since then, sustainable development has been invoked by states to promote appropriate strategies and policies. The perception has grown that the implementation of such strategies and policies is being impeded by global power realities. This has resulted in the persistence of policies and practices that lead to ecological degradation and pollution, as well as industrial economic policies impeding sustainable development, social and economic equality, and gender justice. According to some who point to the crisis of the Rio institutions (in particular the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change), sustainable development policies have had limited success. However, there have been positive contributions towards integrating environment and development. Under the Stockholm Declaration of 1972, states committed themselves to adopting an integrated and coordinated approach to their development planning and to ensuring that their development was compatible with the need to protect and improve the human environment. Twenty years later, the 160 participating states at the Rio Summit were able to adopt two soft-law documents--the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21, both stressing the interconnectedness of environmental with social and economic concerns. The Rio Declaration recognized the rights to development (Principle 3) and poverty alleviation (Principle 5) as key aspects of sustainable development. There was a recognition in the Declaration that both developed and developing states were to adopt policies protecting the environment but that developed states were expected to change their patterns of consumption and production which had caused the majority of the environmental harm and which were compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs. It has rightly been observed that at the end of thirty years the legacy of Rio is one of unfinished business. (1) The Rio Declaration was expected to evolve towards an Earth Charter. The Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), Maurice Strong, had hoped that the Earth Charter could be adopted at the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations in 1995. As a result of a worldwide campaign and the efforts of numerous civil society activists, but without direct input from states, the Earth Charter was launched at the Peace Palace in The Hague in 2000. It was expected that the Earth Charter would be the central document to guide the discussions at the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. The draft Johannesburg Declaration had made a specific reference to the Charter and called for a commitment to its values and principles. The final draft, however, had this reference removed following last-minute objections, mainly from the United States. Immediately preceding the Johannesburg Summit, the International Law Association adopted the New Delhi Declaration on the Principles of International Law Related to Sustainable Development (New Delhi Declaration), which enunciated seven principles: (1) the duty of states to ensure the sustainable use of natural resources; (2) the principle of equity and the eradication of poverty; (3) the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities; (4) the principle of the precautionary approach to human health, natural resources, and eco-systems; (5) the principle of public participation and access to information and justice; (6) the principle of good governance, and (7) the principle of integration and interrelationship, particularly in relation to human rights and social, economic, and environmental objectives. …

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