Article 12 of UN Security Council Resolution 2371. UN vote against North Korea shows the system is working - for once
Where and when did the 1st UN Environment Conference take place?
First UN Conference on Environment took place in 1972 in Stockholm. It became political when Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme accused the United States of using defoliants in Vietnam and demanded that “the environmental war be stopped immediately.” That same year, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) was established to monitor the environment and coordinate acceptable environmental protection measures. In 1987, preparations began for the Meeting of the Earth conference, later called the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED).
The first UN Conference on the Environment, held in Stockholm in 1972, became a historical event that marked the turn of the vast majority of developed countries to an active environmental policy, the intensification of public environmental movements, and the beginning of broad international cooperation in solving environmental problems. The opening day of this conference, June 5, is celebrated as World Environment Day.
The Conference adopted a Declaration on the Environment and an Action Plan in this area.
Twenty years after Stockholm, the UN Conference on Environment and Development took place in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro. The forum attracted a record number of participants: 179 states sent a total of 8 thousand delegates to Brazil.
What differences emerged between developed and developing countries at the UN conference in Rio de Janeiro?
In 2011, it will be 19 years since the summit meeting in Rio de Janeiro of the leaders of 179 states, including Russia, when the most important documents were adopted, designed to change the direction of the further development of earthly civilization.
Some calm in relations between developed and developing countries after the UN Conference in Rio de Janeiro quickly gave way to irritation of the latter and growing confrontation: the promises of the leaders of developed countries were not followed by corresponding actions. The allocation of funds to support the transition of developing countries to sustainable development has not increased, but has decreased, with a significant part of the allocated funds being used by developed countries themselves, and the rest ending up in the pockets of corrupt officials in developing countries. The external debt of developing countries continues to grow rapidly.
By seeking to open the national borders of other countries under the slogan of free trade and internationalization of production, developed countries (especially the United States) pursue, first of all, their national interests.
The conference stated the impossibility of developing countries moving along the path by which developed countries arrived at their prosperity. This model leads to disaster. In this regard, the need was recognized for the world community to transition to the path of sustainable development, ensuring the solution of socio-economic problems and the preservation of the environment, satisfying the basic life needs of the current generation and preserving such opportunities for future generations.
Humanity, as emphasized at the Conference, can make a revolutionary transition to a new partnership type of relationship in the world, to a new nature of production and consumption, only if all layers of society in all countries realize the absolute necessity of such a transition and will contribute to it in every possible way.
The world's population today is about 6.3 billion people. It has increased over the past 10 years by more than a billion, and by 2025, according to forecasts, it will reach 9-10 billion people. The population of developing countries is growing rapidly and today accounts for 3/4 of the planet's population, but it consumes only 1/3 of global production, and the gap in per capita consumption continues to widen.
The widening inequality between rich and poor (75% of humanity), an economic system that does not take into account environmental values and considers unlimited growth of production and consumption as progress, creates an imbalance characterized by economic and environmental instability.
The world social product has been increasing in recent decades by an average of 1 trillion. dollars per year. But only 15% of this increase comes from developing countries. More than 70% goes to already rich countries, i.e. every child born in a country in a developed part of the world consumes 20-30 times more of the planet’s resources than a child in a third world country.
The meeting participants approved the Declaration on Environment and Development, consisting of 27 principles that define the rights and responsibilities of countries in ensuring future development; signed the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, aimed at mitigating the effects of climate change by limiting greenhouse gas emissions, and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, which provides for measures to conserve biological resources.
The adopted Agenda 21 sets out a program to make development sustainable from a social, economic and environmental perspective. “Agenda 21” contains a list of actions that should be taken in each country to ensure the transition to sustainable development. Differences in views on a number of issues divided the Conference into two camps: the United States and the rest of the world.
Particularly acute were the disagreements over the conventions “On Biological Diversity” and “On Climate Change”.
In terms of biological diversity, tropical countries stand out. It is estimated that up to 2/3 of all biological species on the planet live in tropical forests, in the coastal waters of tropical countries and in coral reef zones.
On the other hand, the development of biotechnological processes requires a very serious scientific base and is therefore carried out mainly in developed countries, whose companies and corporations derive very high profits from their use, and there are prospects for expanding the use of biotechnologies in relation to the problems of crop production, animal husbandry, medicine, and environmental protection huge. The average cost of products produced using biotechnology is estimated at tens of billions of dollars. This explains the fierceness of the competition that has unfolded in the field of biotechnology between companies in the USA, Western Europe and Japan.
A very peculiar situation is emerging - the genetic material comes largely from developing countries, and the profits from the use of biotechnologies created on the basis of this material go only to companies in developed countries. Naturally, developing countries consider it fair to transfer part of the profits to them for carrying out the necessary measures to preserve biological diversity or transfer to them on preferential terms new technologies created on the basis of their genetic materials and capable of directly or indirectly helping to resolve environmental issues, and therefore conservation of biological diversity.
This is where a tight knot of problems arises related to satisfying the claims of developing countries: not only taxpayers of developed countries are opposed, but also the ownership of patented technologies of corporations, companies and individuals, and the head of state or government cannot ignore the right of private or corporate property. This problem is of a general nature - private property in many respects becomes a stumbling block on the path to the sustainable development of civilization. In all documents that touch on the transfer of new technologies, the United States took the toughest position, believing that such transfer should be resolved through bilateral negotiations on a commercial basis.
The text of the Convention was agreed upon with the United States at the preparatory stage. All the more unexpected was the statement by George W. Bush, made immediately before the Conference, that the United States would not sign the Convention on the Conservation of Biological Diversity. The refusal to sign a previously agreed document caused a sharply negative reaction in the world and was regarded by many as an attempt by the United States to disrupt the Conference in Rio de Janeiro.
It can be assumed that before the start of the Conference, the US President was under strong pressure from national and transnational companies and corporations working in the field of biotechnology, which he could not ignore during the election campaign.
It should also be emphasized that the United States has done everything possible to weaken the effectiveness of the Climate Change Convention and Agenda 21 on issues related to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, primarily carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.
The main anthropogenic sources of increase in carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere are energy and transport running on fossil fuels. In accordance with this, the main carbon dioxide emissions come from industrialized countries: USA - 25%, Russia, CIS and Baltics - 19%, EEC - 14%, China - 10%, the rest of the world - 32% .
If we calculate emissions per capita, the ratio of figures is even more impressive and indicates that the origins of global climate change lie in the excessive consumption of resources by developed countries.
Currently, the world community is moving towards introducing a price system for all types of resources that fully takes into account the damage caused to the environment and future generations, as well as per capita emissions quotas, which, for example, has already been done in relation to emissions of chlorofluorocarbons that destroy the ozone layer. The transition to quotas means that many developed countries will have to buy quotas for emissions, in particular for carbon dioxide emissions, so even taking into account the serious energy conservation policies pursued in the last two decades by the United States and Western European countries, the United States will be at a significant disadvantage as the country that consumes the most energy resources per capita. Taking this into account, the United States is trying to push back the resolution of quota issues.
Even during the preparation of the Conference, they did everything possible to prevent the introduction of any specific records on the scale and timing of reducing carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere into the Climate Change Convention and the chapter of Agenda 21 devoted to atmospheric problems. And it must be said that, despite the sharply negative position of developing countries, they managed to do this in a bloc with a group of Arab countries. They achieved a soft resolution to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by developed countries.
For the first time, the basic principles of international environmental cooperation were summarized in the Declaration of the Stockholm UN Conference (1972). A special structure was created - the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). An attempt to develop a new model for the development of human civilization was made at the Conference on Environment and Development at the level of heads of state and government held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The conference stated that it is impossible for developing countries to move along the path that developed countries have achieved their prosperity, since the nature of production and consumption in the industrialized part of the world undermines the systems that support life on Earth. The dominant economic system views unlimited growth as progress without considering environmental values and damages. This model of civilization is recognized as leading to disaster and, in connection with this, the need has been declared for the world community to transition to a new concept - the concept of sustainable development, which means ensuring a balance between solving socio-economic problems and preserving the environment, satisfying the basic life needs of the current generation while preserving such opportunities for future generations. If humanity does not do this, then civilization will collapse. But humanity will be able to make a transition to a new type of relationships in the world, to a new nature of production and consumption only if all layers of society in all countries realize the absolute necessity of such a transition and will contribute to it in every possible way.
The concept of Sustainable Development includes the following main provisions:
the focus is on people who should have the right to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature,
environmental protection must become an integral component of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it,
meeting the needs for development and conservation of the environment should extend not only to the current, but also to the future generation,
reducing the gap in living standards between countries, eradicating poverty and destitution are among the most important tasks of the world community,
To achieve sustainable development, states must eliminate or reduce production and consumption patterns that are not conducive to this development.
Five main documents were discussed and adopted in Rio:
1. The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, whose 27 principles define the rights and responsibilities of countries to ensure development and human well-being;
2. The UN Program of Action “Agenda 21” is a program on how to make development sustainable from a social, economic and environmental point of view;
3. Statement of Principles on Forests, covering the management, protection and sustainable development of all types of forests vital to economic development and the conservation of all forms of life;
4. Framework Convention on Climate Change, the purpose of which is to stabilize the concentration in the atmosphere of gases that cause the greenhouse effect at levels that will not cause a dangerous imbalance in the planet’s climate;
5. The Convention on Biological Diversity, which requires countries to take measures to conserve the diversity of living things and ensure equitable distribution of benefits from the use of biological diversity.
Subsequent parts of the document address issues of atmospheric protection, rational use of land, combating deforestation and desertification, conservation of biological diversity, protection of seas and water bodies, issues of the use of toxic substances, environmentally safe disposal of hazardous waste, etc. In addition, special consideration is given to the possibility of strengthening the role of key population groups: women, children and youth, indigenous peoples and local communities, non-governmental organizations, trade unions, industrialists, scientists, farmers. The role of science and education in achieving sustainable development, the role of international cooperation, etc. are emphasized.
At the moment, there are several groups of organizations in the world involved in environmental protection. Firstly, these are organizations of the UN system, secondly, these are various intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, thirdly, these are environmental monitoring and surveillance systems, as well as various scientific and educational institutions studying this problem. Today, the need for more serious interaction between various environmental organizations for the most effective protection of the environment is becoming increasingly obvious.
VYATSK STATE
HUMANITARIAN UNIVERSITY
CHEMICAL FACULTY
DEPARTMENT OF ECOLOGY
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES ON THE ENVIRONMENT
COURSE WORK
COMPLETED
STUDENT
GROUPS E-31(2)
GOREVOY TATYANA
MIKHAILOVNA
SCIENTIFIC ADVISER
KUZNITSYN M. A.
Plan
I. Basic international legal documents in the field of environmental protection.
II. Stockholm Environment Conference 1972:
1) from awareness to decision making;
2) Stockholm Declaration.
III. 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro:
1) positions of the countries participating in Rio-92;
2) preamble to Agenda 21;
4) results of the conference.
IV. UN World Conference on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg 2002:
1) brief description of the Summit;
2) speech by the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation M.M. Kasyanova;
3) Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development.
V. UN conferences and their role in environmental protection.
Basic international legal documents in the field of environmental protection
The main goal of environmental protection is ultimately to establish harmony between human development and the favorable state of the environment. Achieving this goal in a theoretical aspect requires answering a number of complex questions, such as: 1) to what extent changes in the quality of the environment, occurring under the influence of human development, threaten the physical existence of humanity itself; 2) are people able to prevent the onset of an environmental crisis; 3) what needs to be done to solve the problem of environmental protection and guarantee the human right to a favorable environment? Nature does not recognize state and administrative boundaries, and the efforts of one or more states cannot prevent an environmental crisis and produce tangible results in this area. Understanding these processes dictates trends and principles of environmental protection. The main international legal sources in the field of environmental protection include international conventions, treaties, agreements, resolutions and documents of international organizations regarding environmental protection and rational use of natural resources. The most important place in this series is given to resolutions of the UN General Assembly. Environmental law is closely related to maritime, nuclear, space and other branches of international law. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the UN General Assembly in December 1948, did not explicitly address people's rights to a healthy natural environment, which was consistent with the relatively weak negative impacts of the environment on human health and popular attitudes at the time. It seemed quite sufficient to establish human rights to the protection of life and health. On December 18, 1962, the resolution “Economic Development and Nature Conservation” was adopted, which approved the initiative and recommendations proposed by UNESCO. This resolution highlighted three main provisions:
firstly, a holistic consideration of the totality of the environment, natural resources of flora and fauna;
secondly, the integration of the term “nature conservation” into the broader term “environmental protection”;
thirdly, the concept of an organic combination of the interests of nature conservation and economic development.
Then, on December 3, 1968, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing the essential role of a good environment for respect for fundamental human rights and proper economic and social development. The evolution of views in this area has been accompanied by fierce debate and debate. Thus, the American scientist Norman E. Borlaug, a Nobel Prize laureate who received it for his contribution to the “green revolution,” opposed the ban on DDT and other toxic chemicals, criticizing calls for limiting interference in the environment. He declares that without thinking twice, the so-called "protectors" of nature and the environment, as well as ill-informed people working in the media, began a crusade to get agricultural chemicals - pesticides and fertilizers - banned. Miguel A. Oscorio de Almeira, head of the Brazilian delegation to the Stockholm conference, questioned the validity of environmental concerns. The gist of his speech was as follows. We are threatened with the melting of polar ice, which will be followed by the flooding of many large cities. We are threatened with depletion of oxygen reserves on earth caused by excessive oxygen consumption. We are threatened with cancer. We are threatened with starvation. Listening to all these terrible prophecies, it is reasonable to ask the question: how great is their likelihood and how soon can all this happen? As for the timing of the fulfillment of these prophecies, if we are talking about the next decade, it is necessary to take some action. If, however, we have another hundred years, then we have time to expand and deepen our knowledge, and therefore reduce the risk of possible mistakes in solving this problem. If it’s hundreds of thousands or millions of years, then let’s just forget about it - that’s the conclusion he draws. For the first time, the principles of international environmental cooperation were summarized in the Declaration of the United Nations Stockholm Conference on Environmental Problems in 1972. This document, in the form of a preamble, first contains discussions about the essence and causes of the global environmental problem, which explain the need for a new direction of international cooperation - cooperation in the field of environmental protection environment. Then 26 principles are formulated, starting with the proclamation of the fundamental one - the human right to live in an environment, “the quality of which makes possible a dignified and prosperous way of life.” The next step in systematizing international legal principles of environmental protection and environmental management was the World Charter for Nature (WCN), which was approved by the UN General Assembly and solemnly proclaimed in a resolution dated October 28, 1982. Like other ordinary resolutions of the UN General Assembly, the above declarations do not have binding legal force and are advisory in nature. But their significance is very great, since they were adopted directly by the UN General Assembly, which has the highest authority, personifying the will of all mankind. Unlike the Stockholm Declaration, the World Charter for Nature was adopted and solemnly proclaimed by voting. Of the 130 states whose representatives participated in the meeting of the UN General Assembly when considering this issue, 111 states voted for the resolution, 18 abstained and one state - the United States - voted against. The content of the World Charter for Nature contains a certain repetition of the principles of the Stockholm Declaration. But in some ways it goes further along the path of generalization of international legal principles of environmental protection and rational use of natural resources. This can be seen from a comparison of a number of provisions of the Declaration and the Charter. In September 1980, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution “On the historical responsibility of states for preserving the nature of the Earth for present and future generations.” The resolution calls on all states and peoples to take concrete measures to reduce armaments and develop measures to protect the environment. In the latest understanding, the principles of international cooperation in the field of environmental protection are set out in the Declaration on Environment and Development, which was unanimously adopted by the participants at the UN conference held in June 1992 in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The Rio Declaration states that the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, having been convened from 3 to 14 June 1992, reaffirming the Declaration of the United Nations Conference on Environment adopted in Stockholm on 16 June 1972, and seeking to develop It aims to establish a new, equitable global partnership by creating new levels of cooperation between States, key sectors of society and people, working to achieve international agreements that respect the interests of all and protect the integrity of the global environment and development system, recognizing the integrated and interdependent nature Earth, our home. According to the legal and semantic significance, the declared principles of environmental protection can be divided into nine groups, at the head of which it is necessary to determine the principles that affirm the right of citizens to a favorable environment, although 20 years ago priority was given to the sovereignty of states on the use of natural resources and environmental protection.
So, first group includes principles that reinforce the priorities of human rights to a favorable environment and sustainable development. Caring for people is central to efforts to achieve sustainable development. People have the right to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature. The right to development must be realized to ensure that the development and environmental needs of present and future generations are equitably met. To achieve sustainable development, environmental protection must be an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it. Principle 2 of the Stockholm Declaration declares that the Earth's natural resources, including air, water, land, flora and fauna, and especially representative examples of natural ecosystems, should be conserved for the benefit of present and future generations through careful planning and management as appropriate.