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Legislative Instruments

Environmental laws: From Stockholm to Rio the 20-year journey

In 1972 the first United Nations international summit on the environment was held in Stockholm to explore important environmental issues facing the global community. The summit culminated in the Stockholm Declaration outlining the concept of sustainable development. In this instance development (i.e. industrial, resource allocation, and social development) must take into account any possible effect on the environment in any deliberations promoting development. The underlying principles of the declaration was that. The natural resources of the earth including the air, water, land, flora, and fauna and especially representative samples of the natural ecosystems must be safeguarded for the benefit of present and future generations through careful planning and management as appropriate (UNCHE, 1972:principle 2). The issues identified in the Stockholm conference were further explored in the declaration of the World Conservation Strategy (WSC) in 1980.

Most of the international institutions such as the UNEP, IUCN, WWF and many of the other United Nations internal organizations adopted the WCS declaration as their guiding principles of operation. The WSC introduced the concept of sustainable development and the need to control and plan proposed developments in such ways that recognises the limits of the planet and exhaustible natural resources with the needs of future generations. One of the major initiatives of the declaration was to challenge governments around the world to provide comprehensive legislative instruments on environmental planning and policy frameworks to ensure that any domestic development proposals would consider the implications and effects on the natural environment. Soon after the WSC the United Nations 1982 World Charter on Nature was adopted again reaffirming the concept that environmental assessment and integrated decision-making procedures globally must have regard for the environmental consequences of future development.

The culmination of these particular individual charters and declarations resulted in the United Nations establishing the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) in 1982. In 1987 the WCED produced a report that emphasised the importance of sustainable development to save the world from over exploitation of the world non-renewable resources that would meet the present generation’s needs without compromising future generation’s ability to meet their needs.

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