The environmental and development discourse and the genesis of sustainable development agenda

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1 Abstract The sustainable development issue is a major discourse that is dominant in the international politics arena for the last twenty years. States, social movements, corporations, even individuals use sustainability as their common objective but with different meanings. In the following essay we will analyse the initial discourse between environment and development that led to the formulation of the sustainable development agenda. The theory of international relations and international Development Law will be used as a methodogical tool in order to approach the formulation of the sustainable development Afterwards sustainable development will be critically assessed and deconstructed in order to find out about its real content and whether it eventually provides an alternative for the developing nations and Third World communities or not. Finally, the political ecology paradigm will be analysed as an alternative to the sustainable development discourse. The environmental and development discourse and the genesis of sustainable development agenda The development discourse in the post-war era was initiated with the Truman s inaugural address in The central point of his speech was the division of the world in developed and underdeveloped nations which eventually evolved to the foundation of the western modernisation ideology. Modernisation s main argument was that the economic growth could trigger a development process in a rural society that would eventually transform it to an industrialised nation (Barry 1999). The theory was established in 1960 with Rostow s classic work on the five stages of growth towards modernisation. This development orthodoxy was in fact imitating the success of Marshall Plan in Western Europe, creating a one size fits all conceptualisation of development (Adams 2009, p. 9). This approach coincided with the UN s First Decade for Development ( , UN, 1961), which concluded with the adoption of the Declaration for Social Progress and Development that

2 established the People s Rights or the Second Generation of human rights 1 (UN 1969). The influence of the anti-colonial movements is strong and reflected in the UN s General Assembly which is by far the most democratised institution of the UN system. In 1972 the UN organised the UN Conference on Human Environment in Stockholm where the environmental component is introduced in the development process. The Stockholm Conference was in fact the product of the Western Environmentalism as a reaction to the orthodox development paradigm (Clapp, Dauvergne, 2005). In any case, Stockholm was the first step towards the integration of the environmental discourse in the development process. Furthermore, in 1974 the UN General Assembly adopted a declaration calling for a New International Economic Order. This initiative was brought by the majority of the developing states and reflected their willingness for a more equitable distribution of the global wealth. The Third Decade of the UN for Development ( ) was the most crucial in the emergence of the sustainable development agenda. The Third Decade coincides with the Third Generation of human rights that according to Vasak (1977) are: the right to development, the right the common heritage of humankind, the right to peace and the right to a healthy environment. In 1980 the IUCN published the World Conservation Strategy that expressed the need to integrate conservation and development. In 1987 the World Commission on Environment and Development published its report entitled Our Common Future where the most famous definition of the sustainable development came out (WCED 1987): Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (WCED 1987: 43) Next important step to the establishment of the sustainable development agenda was the UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) at Rio in The Rio Declaration with its 27 Principles integrates the environment and development discourse into the sustainable development issue. Especially this is achieved by the 25 th Principle that states: Peace, development and environmental protection are interdependent and indivisible. Furthermore, the convention adopted 1 The right of peoples to self-determination, the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of the States, the respect or sovereignty and territorial integrity, permanent sovereignty of each nation over its natural wealth and resources.

3 an important soft law text, the Agenda 21 which provided the political framework for the governments globally for the implementation of the sustainable development agenda. In 2002 the UN organized the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg where apart from the full recognition by the international community of the sustainability and the interdependence between its pillars (economic, social, and environmental) we have the introduction of a fourth one. This is the political pillar that was the outcome of the fourth section of Agenda 21 and the Plan of Implementation of the Summit which promoted the empowerment and the participation of people at the decentralized local level. The sustainable development discourse Sustainable Development has -in its core- some basic principles that clarify its meaning. These are the intragenerational and the intergenerational equity, the common but differentiated responsibility and the democratic participation (Carter, 2007, Baker, 2006). Intragenerational equity was first announced by Rawls (1971) and was about the equitable opportunities citizens should have in the distribution of wealth and opportunities. In Brundtland s work, the intragenerational equity refers to the social justice that should prevail in all the states and especially in the North South relations. The participation issue refers to the construction of a shared public basis that will eventually help in the implementation of the sustainable development agenda. Baker (2006, p. 30) has created a methodological ladder of sustainability in order to classify the different levels of implementation. The lowest point is the anthropocentric approach that refers to some regulatory measures against pollution and then it goes up to weak and strong sustainability and finally an ideal model. The weak sustainability refers to the implementation of sustainable development from the economic perspective where the natural capital should be priced in order to be preserved (Pearce, 1995). This weak sustainability concept is used mostly by the European Union (Baker 2006). One of the basic concepts of Brundtland s report is that it does not propose an alternative model of development but instead accepts the dominant global capitalism model. This is why the concept of mainstreaming sustainable development (MSD) is constructed on a platform of continued capitalist growth. In addition, the

4 Brundtland report did not provide an alternative for the world economic system but instead -in a way- exported it in the developing countries by promoting free market access, increased capital flows and technology transfers. Although these measures sound rational, the fact is that they were undermined by the global North. For instance in Rio there was a failure in the implementation of funding for the Agenda 21 and the Global Environment Facility. However the global institutions of the Bretton Woods that are responsible for the promotion of the sustainable development globally continued to implement neoliberal policies in the Global South under the concept of the Washington Consensus (Fine, 2003). Hence, the industrialized North under the ideological context of sustainable development tried to perpetuate its dominance over the Global South by using the free trade doctrine, the Bretton Woods institutions and the Trans National Companies. It is a fact that two thirds of the global trade is controlled by companies in the North (Kozul-Wright, as cited in Onis, Senses, 2005). Subsequently any measure towards the liberation of trade would eventually enhance their economic penetration in the countries of the South. What has changed with the sustainable development agenda was the greening of the business corporations especially after the Rio conference and the adoption from the Bretton Woods institutions the social capital theories (Fine, 2001). The greening of the TNC s, the introduction of participation at local levels and the promotion of a more liberal global trade constitute the concept of the ecological modernisation. This is a step further than the market environmentalism because it does not approve unregulated markets but at the same time believes in the selfcorrective potential of capitalist modernisation (Low and Gleeson 1998, p.165, as cited in Adams, p. 125). The focus on basic human needs, technology and participation lead to the third grouping of MSD, the environmental populism. The common point of all these groupings is that they come from the political processes developed in the Northern European countries in the early 80 s and therefore it is difficult to be implemented on a global scale. REFERENCE LIST

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