3. EQUITY AND INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW: FROM
3.4 The Brundtland Report
77 The position taken by state parties in the Declaration is akin to the notions of equity as distributive justice. It emphasises the existing inequality in the society and the need for the distribution of rights and responsibilities to be targeted towards a correction of this inequality.
It is a requirement of justice to compensate those who have been deprived of access to basic necessities. And it is towards this end that some of the provisions of the Declaration are targeted: improving the access of developing states to basic necessities by ensuring that they have the opportunity to pursue development.
While the Stockholm Declaration is not a legally binding agreement and consequently possess no binding force, it remains relevant in understanding the development of equity within climate change treaties. It represents one of the first global attempts at codifying the contention between economic development and environmental action on the one hand, and the inequality between developed and developing states on the other hand. The approach adopted under the Declaration toward this contention defined much of the later development of equity within international environmental law broadly speaking, and the international law on climate change specifically.
Even though the word equity was not at the centre of these discussions, and neither equity nor distributive justice was expressly mentioned in the Declaration, it was the beginning of what later culminated in the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities. The Declaration sought a redistribution of resources between poorer states and their rich counterparts. It recognizes that it would be unjust to place the same level of obligations on both groups of states. This differentiation of responsibilities is further necessitated by the historically disadvantaged position of developing states in comparison with developed states. It became apparent by the end of the Stockholm Conference that an international framework on the environment, which did not take into cognisance the developmental needs of developing states would be regarded as inequitable.
78 the World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission).78 The Brundtland Commission had a duty:
(a) to propose long-term environmental strategies for achieving sustainable development by the year 2000 and beyond;
(b) to recommend ways concern for the environment may be translated into greater co-operation among developing countries and between countries at different stages of economic and social development and lead to the achievement of common and mutually supportive objectives that take account of the interrelationships between people, resources, environment, and development;
(c) to consider ways and means by which the international community can deal more effectively with environment concerns; and
(d) to help define shared perceptions of long-term environmental issues and the appropriate efforts needed to deal successfully with the problems of protecting and enhancing the environment, a long-term agenda for action during the coming decades, and aspirational goals for the world community.79
In summary, the Brundtland Commission was saddled with the responsibility to recommend ways in which states at different levels of developmental growth could collaborate towards the common goals of economic development and environmental protection. The Commission drew more than half of its membership from developing states and held public hearings around the world to get the view of a wide range of interested and affected parties.80 The Commission’s work was eventually published as the Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future (Brundtland Report).81
Following previous works and agreements, like the Stockholm Declaration, the Brundtland Report recognized the connection between environmental issues and development.82 The Commission explained in its report that the ‘environment does not exist as a sphere separate from human actions, ambitions, and needs’.83 Since the environment is our habitat, and development is our attempt at improving our condition within that space, the two phenomena
78 UN General Assembly ‘Process of preparation of the environmental perspective to the Year 2000 and beyond’
Resolution A/38/161 19 December 1983.
79 Ibid para 8.
80 World Commission on Environment and Development Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future (1987) 3 (hereinafter Brundltand Report).
81 Ibid.
82 Ibid.
83 Ibid.
79 are inseparable.84 It is, therefore, naïve to defend the environment in isolation from human needs and concerns.
With respect to development, the Brundtland Commission cautioned against defining development simply as ‘what poor nations should do to become richer’ and thereby making development an issue dedicated solely to development specialists.85 Although the world has witnessed significant developmental leaps, ‘the same process that have produced these gains have given rise to trends that the planet and its people can no longer bear.’86 Many industrial activities have a direct negative consequence on the environment which is supposed to sustain them.87 These economic activities put additional pressure on already limited environmental resources and lead to the impoverishment of many people and the destruction of the environment.88
The Brundtland Report describes this pressure and the accompanying destruction as the
‘failures of development and failures in the management of our human environment.’89 This failure has led to a widening of the wealth inequality between rich and poor states while at the simultaneously destroying the human environment.90 The Report emphasised that the role of the developed world in international rule-making and their excessive use of the global ecological capital has resulted in the impoverishment of states of the developing world.91 The Stockholm Report explained that there are often losers and winners in the association between development and the environment.92 The monopolistic control of resources by certain players in the international community led to the excessive exploitation of limited resources to the detriment of others who do not share in this control.93 The losers in the conflict between development and environment are, therefore, those who bear a disproportionate amount of the costs of development.94 They suffer more from the damage done to the human health, environment and ecosystem than they enjoy the benefits of industrial activities, which are the causes of this damage. On a global scale, these environmental ‘losers’ are the late-comers to
84 Ibid.
85 Ibid.
86 Ibid at 8.
87 Ibid.
88 Ibid at 8, 35.
89 Ibid.
90 Ibid.
91 Ibid at 10.
92 Ibid at 41.
93 Ibid.
94 Ibid.
80 the industrialization process. They do not enjoy the benefits of low-cost supplies like developed states did.95
Industrialized states are also able to transfer the environmental cost of production.96 These costs are transferred through export prices and borne by consumers in the importing state, usually in the developing world.97 Unfortunately, developing states are unable to do the same with their own exports and such costs are borne domestically.98 This inequality is made possible by unfair international trade policies that favour developed states, while exploiting developing states.99 For instance, industrial states adopted policies around the production of cane sugar and beet sugar, which cost developing states about $7.4 billion in revenue.100 Given their industrial advantage, these wealthier nations are therefore in a better financial and technological position to adjust to the implications of climate change.101
The Brundtland Report was not the first to provide a link between economic development and environmental concern. The connection between both phenomena had been highlighted at the Stockholm Conference and the preparatory works before the conference. The Brundtland Report was, however, novel in the kind of connection that it drew between development and the environment. Earlier works had focused on the fact that the priority of developing states was economic development rather than environmental concern. In the face of limited resources, developing states cannot be expected to focus on environmental issues at the absence of their developmental goals.
The link between environment and development was focused on environmental issues caused by under-development in the third world.102 Poverty and need were regarded as the greatest polluters and greatest environmental problem of the developing world.103 Upon this basis, they held the view that there can be no separation of development from environmental protection in the global discourse. Developing states are not able to undertake environmental action in the
95 Ibid.
96 Ibid at 69.
97 Ibid.
98 Ibid.
99 Ibid at 69-70.
100 Ibid.
101 Ibid at 41.
102 Principle 9 of the Stockholm Declaration.
103 Gandhi (n45).
81 absence of developmental support. They emphasised that in order to promote environmental action in these states, developed states must provide support for economic growth.
However, the Brundtland Report established a causal relationship between industrial growth in developed states and global environmental degradation.104 It is not merely that certain states could not afford the cost of environmental action or had environmental problems that were a consequence of under-development. It is the fact that economic growth in certain states is the reason for the degradation of the quality of the global environment and the inability of certain states to protect their environment and improve their quality of life.
The Brundtland Report draws a causal relationship between the environment and development broadly speaking, and between development in industrialized states and underdevelopment and environmental degradation among developing states. Industrialization has created a system of development winners and environmental losers. The early comers to development have been the winners and their development is directly implicated in the poverty and environmental degradation in developing states. This creates a system of global inequality.
This state of inequality between different groups of states is both the earth’s main environmental problem, and its main developmental problem.105 Unlike the arguments emanating from Stockholm, the Brundtland Report showed that linking environmental action with developmental action was not merely necessary for the developmental priority of developing states, the connection was necessary because of the environmental effects of industrialisation in the developed world on their developing counterparts and the resulting injustice and inequality. It is unproductive to direct efforts towards environmental problems without having a comprehensive plan to tackle issues of ‘world poverty and international inequality.’106 The Report showed that we can no longer speak separately of an environmental disaster, or a developmental disaster. These issues are interconnected and must be viewed as one.107
The Brundtland Report served as a basis for much of the negotiations that were to take place five years later at the United Nations Conference on the Environment and Development and planted the seeds that led to the adoption of equity in the UNFCCC. The Report outlined the
104 Brundtland Report 8.
105 Ibid at 10.
106 Ibid at 8.
107 Ibid at 9.
82 causal link between global environmental degradation and the industrialization of the developed world. States were not equal in the extent of their liability for environmental problems and in their capability to mitigate and adapt to its effects. It became apparent that it would be inequitable for both developed and developing groups of states to bear equal responsibilities for climate change. The Brundtland Commission, therefore, succeeded in laying out a foundation for equity in the climate change regime.
The Report emphasised the need for international cooperation in order to assist developing states.108 It highlighted the unfair international trade practices and the need to correct these practices.109 The Report also pointed out the need for the World Bank and other international development organisations to improve financial flows and transnational investments to developing states to improve the development goals of these states.110 The Brundtland Report recommended that the policies for finance and technology transfer must be improved.111