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Assignment 1

The document outlines 27 principles related to sustainable development adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Rio Earth Summit. Some of the key principles include putting human beings at the center of sustainable development efforts, recognizing common but differentiated responsibilities among nations, promoting sustainable production and consumption, applying the precautionary principle in environmental protection, and ensuring the full participation of women, youth, and indigenous peoples in sustainable development.

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127 views

Assignment 1

The document outlines 27 principles related to sustainable development adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, also known as the Rio Earth Summit. Some of the key principles include putting human beings at the center of sustainable development efforts, recognizing common but differentiated responsibilities among nations, promoting sustainable production and consumption, applying the precautionary principle in environmental protection, and ensuring the full participation of women, youth, and indigenous peoples in sustainable development.

Uploaded by

tepi7wepi
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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27 Rio Principles

PRINCIPLE 1 Centrality of Human Beings to the Concerns of Sustainable


Development

Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are
entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.

PRINCIPLE 2

States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles
of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to
their own environmental and developmental policies, and the responsibility to
ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the
environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.

PRINCIPLE 3 and 4 - The Importance of the Environment for Current and Future
Generations and its Equal Footing with Development/Intergenerational Equity

PRINCIPLE 3

The right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet developmental


and environmental needs of present and future generations.

PRINCIPLE 4

In order to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection shall


constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in
isolation from it.

PRINCIPLE 5 Primacy of Poverty Eradication

All States and all people shall co-operate in the essential task of eradicating poverty
as an indispensable requirement for sustainable development, in order to decrease
the disparities in standards of living and better meet the needs of the majority of
the people of the world.

PRINCIPLE 6 Special Consideration to Developing Countries

The special situation and needs of developing countries, particularly the least
developed and those most environmentally vulnerable, shall be given special
priority. International actions in the field of environment and development should
also address the interests and needs of all countries.

PRINCIPLE 7 The Principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR)

States shall co-operate in a spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and


restore the health and integrity of the Earth's ecosystem. In view of the different
contributions to global environmental degradation, States have common but
differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the
responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development
in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the
technologies and financial resources they command.

PRINCIPLE 8 - Sustainable Production and Consumption and the Promotion of


Appropriate Demographic Policies

To achieve sustainable development and a higher quality of life for all people, States
should reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of production and consumption
and promote appropriate demographic policies.

PRINCIPLE 9

States should co-operate to strengthen endogenous capacity-building for


sustainable development by improving scientific understanding through exchanges
of scientific and technological knowledge, and by enhancing the development,
adaptation, diffusion and transfer of technologies, including new and innovative
technologies.

PRINCIPLE 10 Access to Justice, Environmental Information, and Public


Participation

Environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned
citizens, at the relevant level. At the national level, each individual shall have
appropriate access to information concerning the environment that is held by public
authorities, including information on hazardous materials and activities in their
communities, and the opportunity to participate in decision-making processes.
States shall facilitate and encourage public awareness and participation by making
information widely available. Effective access to judicial and administrative
proceedings, including redress and remedy, shall be provided.

PRINCIPLE 11

States shall enact effective environmental legislation. Environmental standards,


management objectives and priorities should reflect the environmental and
developmental context to which they apply. Standards applied by some countries
may be inappropriate and of unwarranted economic and social cost to other
countries, in particular developing countries.

PRINCIPLE 12 Growth and Free Trade

States should co-operate to promote a supportive and open international economic


system that would lead to economic growth and sustainable development in all
countries, to better address the problems of environmental degradation. Trade
policy measures for environmental purposes should not constitute a means of
arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination or a disguised restriction on international
trade. Unilateral actions to deal with environmental challenges outside the
jurisdiction of the importing country should be avoided. Environmental measures
addressing transboundary or global environmental problems should, as far as
possible, be based on an international consensus.

PRINCIPLE 13

States shall develop national law regarding liability and compensation for the
victims of pollution and other environmental damage. States shall also co-operate in
an expeditious and more determined manner to develop further international law
regarding liability and compensation for adverse effects of environmental damage
caused by activities within their jurisdiction or control to areas beyond their
jurisdiction.

PRINCIPLE 14

States should effectively co-operate to discourage or prevent the relocation and


transfer to other States of any activities and substances that cause severe
environmental degradation or are found to be harmful to human health.

PRINCIPLE 15 Precautionary Approach

In order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely


applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious
or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason
for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.

PRINCIPLE 16 Polluter Pays

National authorities should endeavour to promote the internalization of


environmental costs and the use of economic instruments, taking into account the
approach that the polluter should, in principle, bear the cost of pollution, with due
regard to the public interest and without distorting international trade and
investment.

PRINCIPLE 17 Environmental Impact Assessments

Environmental impact assessment, as a national instrument, shall be undertaken for


proposed activities that are likely to have a significant adverse impact on the
environment and are subject to a decision of a competent national authority.

PRINCIPLE 18

States shall immediately notify other States of any natural disasters or other
emergencies that are likely to produce sudden harmful effects on the environment
of those States. Every effort shall be made by the international community to help
States so afflicted.
PRINCIPLE 19

States shall provide prior and timely notification and relevant information to
potentially affected States on activities that may have a significant adverse
transboundary environmental effect and shall consult with those States at an early
stage and in good faith.

PRINCIPLE 20

Women have a vital role in environmental management and development. Their full
participation is therefore essential to achieve sustainable development.

PRINCIPLE 21 Youth and Intergenerational Equity

The creativity, ideals and courage of the youth of the world should be mobilized to
forge a global partnership in order to achieve sustainable development and ensure
a better future for all.

PRINCIPLE 22

Indigenous people and their communities, and other local communities, have a vital
role in environmental management and development because of their knowledge
and traditional practices.

States should recognize and duly support their identity, culture and interests and
enable their effective participation in the achievement of sustainable development.

PRINCIPLE 23

The environment and natural resources of people under oppression, domination and
occupation shall be protected.

PRINCIPLE 24

Warfare is inherently destructive of sustainable development. States shall therefore


respect international law providing protection for the environment in times of armed
conflict and co-operate in its further development, as necessary.

PRINCIPLE 25

Peace, development and environmental protection are interdependent and


indivisible.

PRINCIPLE 26

States shall resolve all their environmental disputes peacefully and by appropriate
means in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.

PRINCIPLE 27
States and people shall co-operate in good faith and in a spirit of partnership in the
fulfilment of the principles embodied in this Declaration and in the further
development of international law in the field of sustainable development.

CONSERVATION PRINCIPLES

1. Carrying Capacity of the Environment - the maximum population size of the


species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the
food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment. It is the
number of individuals an environment can support without significant negative
impacts to a given organism and its environment.
2. Biophilia - "the urge to affiliate with other forms of life"(Edward O. Wilson,
Biophilia, 1984). Wilson uses the term in the same sense when he suggests that
biophilia describes "the connections that human beings subconsciously seek with
the rest of life. He proposed the possibility that the deep affiliations humans have
with nature are rooted in our biology. The hypothesis helps explain why ordinary
people care for and sometimes risk their lives to save domestic and wild animals,
and keep plants and flowers in and around their homes. In other words, our natural
love for life helps sustain life.

3. Doctrine of the Hard-Look - is a principle of Administrative law that says a


court should carefully review an administrative-agency decision to ensure that the
agencies have genuinely engaged in reasoned decision making. A court is required
to intervene if it becomes aware, especially from a combination of danger signals,
that the agency has not really taken a hard look at the salient problems. The
Administrative Procedure Act instructs federal courts to invalidate agency decisions
that are arbitrary or capricious. Close judicial scrutiny helps to discipline agency
decisions and to constrain the illegitimate exercise of discretion. The hard look
doctrine is simply a reflection of the courts' view of how an effective and meaningful
process of judicial review should be conducted.

4. Principle of Non-Regression or Standstill the belief that international law


forbids nations to amend or repeal laws designed to protect the environment. The
principle of non-regression requires that norms which have already been adopted by
States not be revised, if this implies going backwards on the subject of standards of
protection of collective and individual.

5. Tragedy of the Commons - an economics theory by Garrett Hardin, according


to which individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one's
self-interest, behave contrary to the whole group's long-term best interests by
depleting some common resource. "Commons" can include the atmosphere, oceans,
rivers, fish stocks, national parks and any other shared resource. The world being
finite, it can only support a finite population and population growth must therefore,
eventually equal zero, thereby reaching the optimum population. However, the
optimum population is not attainable due to societys concepts of freedom to breed
and the family being the natural and fundamental unit of society coupled with the
belief that everyone born has an equal right to the commons. Hardin finds the
necessity of abandoning the commons in breeding, that no technical solution can
rescue us from the misery of overpopulation. Freedom to breed will bring ruin to
all. The commons dilemma stands as a model for a great variety of resource
problems in society today, such as water, forests, fish, and non-renewable
energy sources such as oil and coal.
6. River Continuum -

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