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Sustainable Development pp 11–33Cite as

NGOs Herald the Arrival of Sustainability

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Abstract

The chapter provides background information about the United Nations-nongovernmental organization relationship and how these rules have developed over time. It opens by presenting background information about the United Nations system and gives a brief overview of one of its organs – the United Nations Environment Program. The chapter continues with a review of the United Nations Environmental Conferences focusing on the Stockholm-Rio-Johannesburg Trajectory that highlights major turning points in the ongoing diplomatic negotiations about sustainable development.

The remainder of the chapter introduces the sustainable development discourse with a focus on its importance as a political compromise that allowed Northern developed countries to discuss environmental protection with Southern developing countries. As a result sustainable development remains a controversial topic representing different philosophies ranging from resource conservation to socio-economic equality through environmental justice.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For more information about hard and soft law, see Abbott and Snidal (2000) and Sheldon (2000).

  2. 2.

    Although some rare instances of treaty negotiations (and treaties, mainly involving the protection of migratory birds) occurred, many of these conferences could be considered as non-political, informational exchange meetings, such as the 1968 UNESCO sponsored Man and the Biosphere Conference.

  3. 3.

    For more information about the debate surrounding the creation of a World Environment Organization see Biermann and Bauer (2005), Ivanova (2009).

  4. 4.

    It has become commonplace and ordinary for states to include members of NGOs and businesses as part of the state delegation (Walker 2004:15).

  5. 5.

    While Stockholm created a negative linkage between environment and development, the more positive connotations of the term sustainable development did not enter the international arena until the 1980s. See Chap. 3 for a detailed treatment of the conceptualization of sustainable development.

  6. 6.

    The tradition of an “automatic” review of a conference after 5 years ended in 2003, when the UN General Assembly stipulated that reviews of follow-up conferences would occur on an ad hoc basis.

  7. 7.

    Bracketed text indicates countries inability to agree on the formal wording of a treaty.

  8. 8.

    For more information on the negotiating history of the Kyoto Protocol, see Oberthur and Ott (1999) and Yamin and Depledge (2004).

  9. 9.

    The UN established this precedence with the first follow-up “conference” – a UNEP Governing Council of a Special Session that occurred in Nairobi in 1982.

  10. 10.

    One of President Bush’s first major foreign policy decisions was to withdraw the United States from the Kyoto Protocol. For more information about this decision, see Cohen and Egelston (2003).

  11. 11.

    The UN Yearbook (1947) indicates that the first four NGOs accredited to the UN are the American Federation of Labor, the ICC, the International Co-Operative Alliance and the World Federation of Trade Unions.

  12. 12.

    Multiple other NGO conferences occurred during the same time as UNCHE in Stockholm. For a complete description of these other events, see Chap. 4.

  13. 13.

    The classic definition of public good states that it is a good or service that is both non-rivaled and non-excludable. That is, everyone can consume the good without diminishing the usefulness of the good and that individuals are not easily excluded from consuming the good. Clean air is frequently cited as an example of an environmental public good. There is a substantial literature on public goods, frequently referred to as common pool resources. See for example, Barkin and Shambaugh (1999), McCay and Acheson (1987), McKean (2000), Olson (1965), Singh (1994).

  14. 14.

    The ICC is one of a handful of NGOs that was invited by states to sign an international economic agreement, occurring once in 1927 and again in 1928 (White 1951:21).

  15. 15.

    Resolution 1296 (XLIV) in 1968 allowed national NGOs to apply for consultative status although it took several years before the international/national distinction disappeared (UN 1968).

  16. 16.

    Category C officially became the Registry in 1950.

  17. 17.

    Certain government officials saw funding of NGOs during the cold war as a flagrant violation of international protocol, although many NGOs receive government funding, albeit not for spying, today. For more information, including bibliographic references to the original New York Times articles, see Chiang (1981:77).

  18. 18.

    The other two commissions are the Brandt Commission, more formally known as the Independent Commission on International Development and the Palme Commission, the Independent Commission on Disarmament and Security Issues. The Brandt Commission issued two reports North-South: A Program for Survival and Common Crisis: North-South Cooperation for World Recovery, while the Palme Commission issued one report – Common Security.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Government Department, Lone Star College-Montgomery, Conroe, TX, 77384, USA

    Dr. Anne E. Egelston

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Egelston, A.E. (2013). NGOs Herald the Arrival of Sustainability. In: Sustainable Development. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4878-1_2

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