. (XXIV), the General Assembly decided to convene, in 1972, a global conference in Stockholm. in Report of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. 13 June 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human. CONFERENCE ON STOCKHOLM DECLARATION AND LAW OF. human environment to the forefront: The 1972 Stockholm Declaration on the. the Stockholm Conference adopted 109 recommendations for action. 3.
Federal Office for Spatial Development AREThe Conference in Stockholm was the first time that attention was drawn to the need to preserve natural habitats to produce a sustained improvement in living conditions for all, and the need for international cooperation to achieve this. The emphasis was on solving environmental problems, but without ignoring social, economic and developmental policy factors. That same year, the Club of Rome published its report on «The Limits to Growth», which attracted enormous attention in the climate of the Stockholm Conference and the oil crisis of the early 1. The Stockholm Declaration that was adopted at the conference was formulated jointly by industrialized and developing countries.
The United Nations Conference on the Human Environment was held in. When the UN General Assembly decided to convene the 1972 Stockholm Conference. UN Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm 1972) Brundtlandt. ANNEXES 1. Report of the Credentials Committee. II. Report of the Working Group on the Declaration on the Human Environment III. General principles for assessment and control of marine pollution. IV.
Stockholm 1972 report of the united nations conference on the human environment. report of the united nations conference on the human environment.
It contains principles of environmental protection and development, as well as practical recommendations for their implementation. It may be regarded as one of the foundation stones of the international policy that would come to be known as «sustainable development».
The Conference led in the same year to the establishment of the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP), based in Nairobi, Kenya. A global monitoring system, Earthwatch, was also set up and has since been integrated into the UNEP.
Declaration of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. Introduction The Stockholm and Rio Declarations are outputs of the first and second global environmental conferences, respectively, namely the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, June 5- 1.
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, June 3- 1. Other policy or legal instruments that emerged from these conferences, such as the Action Plan for the Human Environment at Stockholm and Agenda 2.
Rio, are intimately linked to the two declarations, conceptually as well as politically. However, the declarations, in their own right, represent signal achievements. Adopted twenty years apart, they undeniably represent major milestones in the evolution of international environmental law, bracketing what has been called the “modern era” of international environmental law (Sand, pp. Stockholm represented a first taking stock of the global human impact on the environment, an attempt at forging a basic common outlook on how to address the challenge of preserving and enhancing the human environment.
As a result, the Stockholm Declaration espouses mostly broad environmental policy goals and objectives rather than detailed normative positions. However, following Stockholm, global awareness of environmental issues increased dramatically, as did international environmental law- making proper. At the same time, the focus of international environmental activism progressively expanded beyond transboundary and global commons issues to media- specific and cross- sectoral regulation and the synthesizing of economic and development considerations in environmental decision- making.
By the time of the Rio Conference, therefore, the task for the international community became one of systematizing and restating existing normative expectations regarding the environment, as well as of boldly positing the legal and political underpinnings of sustainable development. In this vein, UNCED was expected to craft an “Earth Charter”, a solemn declaration on legal rights and obligations bearing on environment and development, in the mold of the United Nations General Assembly’s 1. World Charter for Nature (General Assembly resolution 3. Although the compromise text that emerged at Rio was not the lofty document originally envisaged, the Rio Declaration, which reaffirms and builds upon the Stockholm Declaration, has nevertheless proved to be a major environmental legal landmark. Historical Background.
In 1. 96. 8- 6. 9, by resolutions 2. XXIII) and 2. 58.
XXIV), the General Assembly decided to convene, in 1. Stockholm, whose principal purpose was “to serve as a practical means to encourage, and to provide guidelines … to protect and improve the human environment and to remedy and prevent its impairment” (General Assembly resolution 2. XXVI). One of the essential conference objectives thus was a declaration on the human environment, a “document of basic principles,” whose basic idea originated with a proposal by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that the conference draft a “Universal Declaration on the Protection and Preservation of the Human Environment”. Work on the declaration was taken up by the Conference’s Preparatory Committee in 1. Although there was general agreement that the declaration would not be couched in legally binding language, progress on the declaration was slow due to differences of opinion among States about the degree of specificity of the declaration’s principles and guidelines, about whether the declaration would “recognize the fundamental need of the individual for a satisfactory environment” (A/CONF. C. 9), or whether and how it would list general principles elaborating States’ rights and obligations in respect of the environment. However, by January 1.
Declaration, albeit one the group deemed in need of further work. The Preparatory Committee, however, loath to upset the compromise text’s “delicate balance”, refrained from any substantive review and forwarded the draft declaration consisting of a preamble and 2. Conference on the understanding that at Stockholm delegations would be free to reopen the text. At Stockholm, at the request of China, a special working group reviewed the text anew. It reduced the text to 2.
In response to objections by Brazil, the working group deleted from the text, and referred to the General Assembly for further consideration, a draft principle on “prior information”. The Conference’s plenary in turn added to the declaration a provision on nuclear weapons as a new Principle 2. On 1. 6 June 1. 97. Conference adopted this document by acclamation and referred the text to the General Assembly. During the debates in the General Assembly’s Second Committee, several countries voiced reservations about a number of provisions but did not fundamentally challenge the declaration itself.
This was true also of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and its allies which had boycotted the Conference in Stockholm. In the end, the General Assembly “note[d] with satisfaction” the report of the Stockholm Conference, including the attached Declaration, by 1. General Assembly resolution 2. XXVII)). It also adopted resolution 2. XXVII) in which it affirmed implicitly a State’s obligation to provide prior information to other States for the purpose of avoiding significant harm beyond national jurisdiction and control.
In resolution 2. 99. XXVII), finally, the General Assembly clarified that none of its resolutions adopted at this session could affect Principles 2.
Declaration bearing on the international responsibility of States in regard to the environment. Following its adoption, in 1.
Environmental Perspective to the Year 2. Beyond” (General Assembly resolution 4. Annex) – “a broad framework to guide national action and international co- operation [in respect of] environmentally sound development” - and responding to specific recommendations of the World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED), the General Assembly, by resolution 4. December 1. 98. 9, decided to convene UNCED and launch its preparatory committee process. The resolution specifically called upon the Conference to promote and further develop international environmental law, and to “examine … the feasibility of elaborating general rights and obligations of States, as appropriate, in the field of the environment”. Work on this objective, and on “incorporating such principles in an appropriate instrument/charter/statement/declaration, taking due account of the conclusions of all the regional preparatory conferences” (A/4. Working Group III (WG- III) on legal and institutional issues whose mandate was expanded beyond States’ rights/obligations in the field of the environment, to include “development”, as well as the rights/obligations of other stakeholders (such as individuals, groups, women in development, and indigenous peoples).
WG- III held its first substantive meeting during the Preparatory Committee’s third session in Geneva, in 1. Actual drafting of the text of the proposed instrument, however, did not begin until the fourth and final meeting of the Preparatory Committee in New York, in March/April, 1. A proposal for an elaborate convention- style draft text for an “Earth Charter”, first advocated by a WCED legal expert group, did not win approval as it was specifically rejected by the Group of 7. G- 7. 7 and China) as unbalanced, as emphasizing environment over development.
The Working Group did settle instead on a format of a short declaration that would not connote a legally binding document. Still, negotiations on the text proved to be exceedingly difficult. Several weeks of the meeting were taken up by procedural maneuvering. In the end, a final text emerged only as a result of the forceful intervention of the chairman of the Preparatory Committee, Tommy Koh.
The resulting document was referred to UNCED for further consideration and finalization as “the chairman’s personal text”. Despite threats by some countries to reopen the debate on the Declaration, the text as forwarded was adopted at Rio without change, although the United States (and others) offered interpretative statements thereby recording their “reservations” to, or views on, some of the Declaration’s principles. In resolution 4. 7/1. December 1. 99. 2 the General Assembly endorsed the Rio Declaration and urged that necessary action be taken to provide effective follow- up.
Since then, the Declaration, whose application at national, regional and international levels has been the subject of a specific, detailed review at the General Assembly’s special session on Rio+5 in 1. World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2. Rio+2. 0”, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in 2. Summary of Key Provisions and Their Present Legal Significancea. General Observations. The Stockholm Declaration consists of a preamble featuring seven introductory proclamations and 2.
Rio Declaration features a preamble and 2. As diplomatic conference declarations, both instruments are formally not binding. However, both declarations include provisions which at the time of their adoption were either understood to already reflect customary international law or expected to shape future normative expectations.
Moreover, the Rio Declaration, by expressly reaffirming and building upon the Stockholm Declaration, reinforces the normative significance of those concepts common to both instruments. Both declarations evince a strongly human- centric approach. Whereas Rio Principle 1 unabashedly posits “human beings … at the centre of concerns for sustainable development”, the Stockholm Declaration — in Principles 1- 2, 5 and several preambular paragraphs — postulates a corresponding instrumentalist approach to the environment. The United Nations Millennium Declaration 2. General Assembly resolution 5. However, the two declarations’ emphasis contrasts with, e.