Begegnungen
Schriftenreihe des Europa Institutes Budapest, Band 20:31–41.

TIBOR FARAGÓ–JÓZSEF FEILER

World Summit on Sustainable Development

The World Summit of Johannesburg was called on the tenth anniversary of the UN Conference on Environment and Development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, according to the original intention primarily for the assessment of the implementation of the programme entitled Agenda 21, passed in Rio, for the exploration of factors hindering the accomplishment of aims spelt out by it and for the definition of further tasks. The resolution of the UN General Assembly of February 2001 on calling the World Summit in Johannesburg unambiguously stipulated it, but in order to shed light on the complexity and contradictions of international talks, it should be noted, that there have been several major international events since 1992, or new problems of global significance got into the focus of attention. Their topics have also been closely linked to the programme of sustainable development.

Essence of the Summit, critical issues on the agenda

During the decade after the major UN Conference of 1992, the World Summit was dedicated to such ‘well known’ topics of outstanding significance like demographic issues, social and environmental problems related to human settlements, international assistance to be given to the least developed countries, the assertion of human rights, the ‘management’ of natural disasters and their consequences, or the operation of the fund aiming at the solution of global environmental problems, etc. During that period other international forums were held for the discussion of highly significant processes, grave problems, or new international initiatives. Without wishing to give a total list, some of them are the following: globalisation, AIDS, international terrorism, the criteria and tasks of social development, the demands of global environmental ‘governance’ and their institutional and coordinative issues, the role of science, and scientific cooperation (incidentally, Budapest hosted the world conference dealing with the latter one).

The UN resolution mentioned above proposed that the results of other significant UN conferences and summits related to sustainable development should be considered and the new challenges and possibilities should also be taken into account. At the World Summit, during the course of the discussion of the Plan of Implementation under preparation, this had also become a critical issue and it was raised whether the multiplicity of topics should be discussed in their totality and interrelationships, further on the results and aims of the various world meetings, or these programmes and international processes should be kept, evaluated and carried forward within their emergent institutional and organizational framework. While the delegations of several countries, including the European Union (EU), keeping in view the comprehensive concept of sustainable development, pressed for a complex ‘holistic and coherent’ approach, the developing countries saw greater safeguards in international cooperation conducted along several parallel lines where issues closely related to the set of the international conditions of their possibilities for progress and development would also be discussed.

In this respect it was the Millennium Declaration passed on the highest level, within the framework of the UN General Assembly in the year 2000, the recommendations and offers accepted at the conference held at Doha on the reform of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and at Monterrey, closing the process of „financing for development” by the UN, that had fundamentally influenced the talks and results of the World Summit. As a consequence, and differently from the Rio Summit, the Johannesburg Summit focused primarily on combating poverty, on cohesion inside and among societies, on the support of developing countries in development and technology, on their catching up, on the solution of social problems, on safeguarding fair living conditions, basic social and infrastructural services for all, and the relationship of these issues with globalisation, world trade and monetary questions. Everything else, even highly important issues were put on the agenda in relation to these questions, such as: the non-sustainable consumption ‘patterns’ of developed countries as the other side of the emergent differences in development and also the unjust and non-sustainable ‘overdraw’ of the environmental resources, the protection of the natural environment, or, for instance, the further development of the system of institutions for international cooperation.

Next some critical topics of the international talks and accords are presented that are directly related to the above-outlined primary area of problems, also hallmarked by the World Summit, and determining the process of international cooperation. The present paper can only embark on their concise presentation. In addition to the areas mentioned here several other critical issues were raised and remained mostly unsolved during the preparatory process, or some kind of forward-looking compromise was reached in the case of some of them only in Johannesburg.

Basic principles of sustainable development

The basic principles were listed by the declaration of the 1992 Conference, the Rio Declaration, but (in a slightly different wording) they already represented one of the major achievements of the Stockholm conference of 1972. In keeping with the themes and nature of both events these basic principles primarily offer theoretical ‘guidelines’ from the angle of the relationship between societies and the environment to the definition of aims, tasks and means. During the period passed since that time knowledge and sets of views related to the present and future of societies have become more complete and sophisticated, together with expectations facing international cooperation, and also the political standpoints about responsibility, solidarity and partnership concerning the common social and environmental problems in our globalising world. It can be understood on the basis of this circumstance and of the decisive topics of international talks mentioned above that it was the interpretation, reference to and implementation of the “principle of common but differentiated responsibility” of the basic principles that represented the most critical problem.

This principle, as it was laid down in the Rio Declaration, raised primarily the responsibility of developed countries in relation to the emergence of global environmental problems. According to the wording passed in 1992, the developed countries had to play a leading role in the solution of these problems in view of the fact that they had contributed to the deterioration of the condition of the earth’s environment during the course of their earlier development. Raising and acknowledging this responsibility permeated the global environmental agreements reached in Rio, and figured even more markedly behind the developmental aims included in the Millennium Declaration of the UN, and this basic principle was included even in the General Assembly resolution prescribing the calling of the World Summit. It became obvious in the international preparatory process and also during the Johannesburg proceedings that this time the developing countries were to refer to this principle in a much broader sense: they referred in general to the historical responsibility of the developed countries for their economic and social problems and for their lagging behind. Representatives of the developed countries did not accept it. The final document continued to refer to the former interpretation, but gave it more stress and mentioned that principle more frequently as being one of those having special significance among all the other principles of sustainable development. At the same time it was pointed out that the basic principles were closely related to one another and only jointly gave a proper guidance to the wording of aims and tasks (in this respect it is difficult to understand that, for instance, there was no reference made to the Rio principle on the elimination of non-sustainable consumer habits).

The delegations of the European Union, Switzerland and Norway, with the support of a few other delegations, including the Hungarian one, stood for the consideration of the principle of precaution, particularly in the interest of regulating and limiting human activities that may endanger the condition of the environment and that too in the long run. The developing countries expressed their concern about this principle particularly because of its implementation in international trade. Huge political and economic interests and differences of interests were at work in the background of the discussions. The representatives of several developed countries expressed their doubt when reference was made to this basic principle, and the exploitation of natural resources without limitations by ‘principle’ was a primary economic interest of several developing countries even if it endangered their own economic development in the long run and could contribute to global environmental problems. Thus ultimately no agreement could be reached even in relation to the protection of natural resources on the basis of the principle mentioned above. In this situation it may be regarded a serious achievement that, beyond supporting decision-making that would consider this principle and based itself on science, the World Summit corroborated the consideration of the precautious approach regarding the handling of chemical materials and hazardous waste.

Of the basic principles of sustainable development it was the one dealing with public participation that received distinguished attention. In this case too the World Summit and its Plan of Implementation went beyond the earlier, expressly environmental exposure and implementation and considered social participation and cooperation with every involved group of interest representation in a broader sense as indispensable in every respect of sustainable development.

Thus the principles of Rio can be considered as the bases of tasks and cooperation related to the topics discussed by the World Summit, but visibly there has been a serious demand for their extension ‘pointing beyond Rio’, namely for principles that are more valid for the totality of sustainable development, or at least for their extended interpretation. While the Rio Declaration summarily adopted the definition of sustainable definition acknowledging the right of the present and future generations to the satisfaction of their demands for development and for the environment as worded by the Brundtland-Commission, the Johannesburg documents, in harmony with the statements of the past decade, supplement and make it more exact. Accordingly the three pillars of sustainable development (economic and social development, and the protection of the environment) are closely interrelated and mutually supportive and all of us are collectively responsible for their joint strengthening on local, national, regional and global levels as well.

Criteria of good governance and helping developing countries

Laying down the main requirements of good governance, and primarily of the democratic set of institutions was primarily pressed for by the United States, with support of a different extent by the other developed countries and resentments of varying emphases of the developing countries, stressing the cultural diversity and different sets of values of the various countries. An agreement in this topic was again reached with great difficulty, as on the one hand it is the internal order and operational practice of sovereign countries, and the recognition of the fact on the other, that the conditions and tasks of the realisation of sustainable development, and the economic-social and environmental processes endangering it ‘do not know’ about national borders. And the latter one is literally a matter of survival for the least developed countries and those that are most exposed to economic and environmental effects. A ‘linking’ of the expectation of satisfying demands related to good governance and the international support of developing countries was quite unambiguous. This topic was put on the agenda in this politically rather sharp and delicate wording because of the priorities that have been changing since Rio, even within the framework of cooperation for sustainable development.

Considering all these issues, the criteria accepted for and to be asserted by national-level good governance, equally valid for all countries, were spelt out in a very sophisticated wording: efficient environmental, social and economic policies, democratic institutions, government by law, measures against corruption, gender equality, an environment promoting investments (economic regulation). Several other points of consideration ‘deliberately’ did not figure in this context valid for each and every country: thus, for instance, the assertion of human rights and basic liberties is only generally reflected by the Plan of Implementation as something significant to the achievement of sustainable development. The related universal expectations include among others freedom, peace, security and stability besides respecting human rights.

The World Summit passed significantly more concrete and practical recommendations in relation to the national sets of institutions and means serving the implementation of the principles of sustainable development and a more efficient coordination of tasks than in the case of the topic of good government. It should be added however, that there had been serious debate also among delegations stressing the common, or specific (individual) requirements by countries as far as details went. According to the agreement the institutional framework, serving sustainable development, should be developed in every country, better coordination should be assisted, together with the elaboration and implementation of strategies of sustainable development and the related set of legal norms; the conditions of social cooperation and participation oriented towards sustainable development should be improved.

Coming back to the international support of developing countries, the approved Plan of Implementation acknowledges the differences between developed and developing countries and the need for helping developing countries after listing the above-mentioned basic requirements of good governance, particularly in the areas of economic cooperation, financing, the transfer of technology, debt management, or of international trade.

As it was mentioned earlier, of the topics of sustainable development the greatest attention was accorded to combating poverty. Besides statements related to the general and concrete needs, ‘sectors’ (supply of potable water, energy, health care, etc.), a serious discussion unfolded on the issues of the institutions and modes of financing by international resources. A consensus was reached with great difficulty only particularly about three points, such as: the confirmation of former declarations of intent for the increase of contribution to the Official Development Assistance, the setting up of an international Solidarity Fund, and for the enlargement of the Global Environmental Facility. The Summit dealt separately with the issues of the development and development financing of the African states struggling against the largest number of problems, and of the extremely ‘vulnerable’ small island states.

Combating poverty and shift to sustainable production processes and consumption patterns

The catching up of developing countries, combating poverty, and the developmental activities of developed countries in this respect within the framework of the UN, and activities in the interest of social and economic cooperation first and foremost have become the most important topics during the past decades. Programmes had been launched under the most diverse titles dealing with these issues and innumerable international forums were held; and an equally large number of UN-programmes of different themes have also dealt with these problems. The ‘Rio process’ did not differ from this trend either, but the sustainable programme of development, passed in 1992, closely linked the problem of North and South, the issues of development with the preservation of nature, with the requirement of the sustainable utilisation of environmental resources. In addition at last it was more unambiguous about the unsustainable and ‘unfair’ use of resources and the degradation of the environment by the developed countries.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development went further and instead of following the structure of the 1992 programme, or the direction of the assessment and determination of the tasks based on the three pillars of sustainable development, their interrelationships, and its instrumental and institutional aspects, it has chosen a different ‘order of priority’. The three prominent aims, considered as a pledge of sustainable development, offering a framework for tasks in every area are: combating poverty, changing the unsustainable production processes and consumer patterns, and the preservation and (sustainable) management of the natural resource base of economic and social development.

While an agreement was soon reached in this general conceptual approach by the UN Member States, an accord was reached with great difficulty on the developmental demands of developing countries, on the components and methods of shifting to sustainable production processes and consumer patterns in the developed countries, primarily due to the lack of adequate political will.

Naturally the debate on fair living conditions, on the definition of the components of basic needs could not be made independent of what was the nature and dimension of demand for international assistance and its shouldering that was in the ‘background’, in certain cases linked to concrete aims and deadlines. The relevant chapter of the Plan of Implementation itemised the various areas of action. Wherever it was existent and relevant, the starting points were the aims published in the UN Millennium Declaration, but in addition to their corroboration new and more or less concrete development objectives and demands for assistance were raised and put in the focus of discussion. The most serious conflicts emerged around safeguarding the targeted basic public health care related to the objective of offering healthy potable water to be accomplished by 2015: the ‘front-line fighter’ of this proposal was the European Union, it was obviously supported by the developing countries, but the most developed countries, and primarily the United States did not agree with approving new concrete objectives requiring significant assistance. A partly similar and extremely protracted discussion evolved around the issue of access to basic energy supplies (the lack of which primarily hits the developing countries and particularly poor families living in rural areas).

As it was mentioned above, issues of non-sustainable production and consumption were discussed as mirroring some elements of combating poverty. In this area too huge differences were manifest among the developed countries, particularly in respect of the uniform programmed approach, of production and consumption of energy, of ‘eco-efficiency’, of information orienting consumers towards sustainable consumption habits, or, for instance, regarding social and environmental responsibilities expected of companies and their obligation to give information. In this topic the EU considered a ‘programmed’ approach necessary, in other words, it demanded the development and implementation of a ten-year framework programme. The group of developing countries and the United States among others in the developed group opposed the uniform programme. At the same time every delegation acknowledged in general that natural resources were rapidly degrading because of the current trends of consumption, particularly in the most developed countries, differences in the utilisation of resources kept on growing, hence urgent measures were needed.

Finally, strange compromises were reached in these issues as well; here only three significant components of them are mentioned. Consensus was reached regarding the health care objective mentioned above, as something indispensable to the success of combating poverty. Secondly, a rather obscurely worded accord serves the international coordination of regional and national programmes that are necessary to shifting to sustainable consumer habits (with the development of a ten-year ‘framework’). Thirdly, the EU and other countries ‘thinking similarly’ made concessions regarding a concrete definition and numerical aim to figure for the introduction of a larger proportion of renewable energy resources.

Responsibility related to the utilisation and destruction of natural resources

It can be regarded as one of the major merits of the programme approved in Rio that it systematically dealt with every environmental element endangered by human activities, that it defined tasks for the regulation and limitation of these dangerous activities, and for the moderation of harmful affects deriving from burdening the environment. Separate detailed chapters discussed the protection of the atmosphere against harmful emission, the protection of biodiversity and of the oceans, and several other topics. During the time passed since Rio, one could witness significant legal, institutional, monitoring and research developments and results, at the same time the condition of our natural environment has further deteriorated to global scale due to multiplying demands and influences.

In this area too the sharpest debates were related to responsibilities concerning the emergent situation and about measures to be taken in the interest of a solution that is of reducing the global burden on the environment. Stopping the depletion and degradation of natural resources was raised on the most general level, but ultimately no agreement could be reached on a related concrete programme and deadline either. Further on, no agreement could be reached so that the numerous international agreements on the protection of the environment should be implemented with special regard to their interrelationships. In relation to the latter issue the majority was forced to acknowledge the divergent viewpoint particularly of the United States on international agreements dealing with the protection of the climate of the earth and of biodiversity. This time too the international accord on the emission of greenhouse gases, the Kyoto Protocol proved to be one of the most delicate issues, as with the exception of the United States and Australia all other states have ‘taken to the road’ of the ratification of that Protocol. The major political and press publicity offered by the World Summit also contributed to the fact that the Canadian and Russian heads of government announced their intention of ratification in Johannesburg. Due to the lack of adequate understanding (protests by a few countries) accords related to international water-courses were regrettably deleted from the draft, including the declaration of joint responsibility over them, and even pressing for the ‘handling’ of these natural values and resources based on the principles of sustainable development.

In contrast a concrete agreement was reached after long discussions among others on the preparation of integrated plans of water management, on the urgent introduction of ‘economic management’ allowing for the regeneration of the stock of decaying sea fish because of ‘excessive fishing’, and also on the consideration of the specific demands of developing countries regarding marine fishing. Further on, an agreement was reached on the moderation of the presently rapid rate of biodiversity loss within a decade, or, for instance, on a more unambiguous guaranteeing of the conditions of financial support to the implementation of international agreements dealing with desertification through the Global Environmental Fund.

Common and different interests of the developed and developing ones

The issues of globalisation, world trade and financing represented the topics of the World Summit that were loaded with contradictions most difficult to solve and were discussed in a separate group. Tension and conflicting interests between the developed and developing countries were most markedly manifest in this negotiating group.

The interpretation and assessment of globalisation gained stress during the Summit because the conflicts indicating most the ‘bitter’ experiences of international cooperation for the developing and developed countries during the past ten years were expressed through this topic, on an ideological plane. The United States, and the big group of developing countries referred back to the different assessments of globalisation or to the one approved by former UN conferences, while the EU pressed for a new assessment. The approved text, characterising globalisation, acknowledges that it is accompanied by several serious challenges in the field of financial crises, uncertainties, inequalities and poverty.

In the framework of talks on globalisation the most vigorous discussion unfolded in relation to the responsibility of business enterprises; it was primarily the developing countries and the EU Member States that supported the strengthening of that responsibility. Finally, an agreement was reached on the active promotion of the accountability and responsibility of enterprises on the basis of the Rio principles. It is the novelty of the final document that in addition to the voluntarily taken obligations of enterprises the relevant intergovernmental agreements of the present and the future were also regarded as necessary tools in the interest of this aim.

Last year the Doha conference of the World Trade Organisation considered a comprehensive reform and launched a process of multilateral talks. In fact here an older topic is involved: it is the rapid development of the world trade system during the past decades, participation in the trade system and the increasing differences of the ensuing profit and disadvantages between individual countries and groups of countries. Trade among others is an instrument to the solution of the welfare, economic and environmental tasks of any given country, but if the adequate national policies and regulations are missing its disadvantageous affects may manifest themselves to an increasingly serious degree. World trade has been one of the most delicate international mechanisms from the angle of sustainable development in our globalising world, this is why it represented one of the prominently critical topics of talks at the World Summit. Characteristically this topic appeared to be so ‘unmanageable’ during the preparatory talks that it was even suggested to simply refer to the process of negotiations re-launched at Doha and that this topic was essential even from the point of view of the broad concept of sustainable development.

An effective participation in the world trade system is vital for the developing countries. For this reason and on the basis of the comprehensive international requirements of sustainable development first of all the wording of such expectations was raised that aimed particularly at promoting the marketing of the products of the least developed countries and the early termination of export subsidies applied by the developed ones. The openness of the WTO was also a topic of the World Summit, namely the still unsolved issue of the membership of all the states and their participation in the decision-making system. After the protracted and tense discussion of these issues ultimately one of the most delicate and hardly soluble problems was the harmonisation of the rules of world trade and the stipulations of the international agreements on the protection of the environment, and the acknowledgement of their equal standing.

The part of the Plan of Implementation dealing with the means of implementation touches upon the topic of financing. A curios feature of the talks was that the corroboration and renegotiation of the results of the International Conference on Financing for Development, held a couple of months earlier in Monterrey, were also put into the foreground. The developing countries hoped for additional resources within the framework of the Official Development Assistance, whereas the developed countries stressed a more efficient utilisation of the already existing funds of support.

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The World Summit faced an almost impossible task: it had to select and establish an order of precedence in a multitude of problems, programmes, institutions and means described above, those that are problems, aims, tasks and means of implementation having a really decisive significance for our age and for the future, and to attempt a division of responsibilities and work, to reconsider a more efficient coordination and to evolve consensus in all these areas. It is against this task only that the commitments undertaken by the approved Political Declaration and Plan of Implementation can be properly assessed, together with the weight of the general recommendations and the occasionally more exact aims, and also the reality of their possible implementation. Yet in addition the process of international talks and cooperation itself represents an inestimable value because it is without alternative, as it facilitates the exposition of increasingly globalised problems and their consequences, the political analysis of the interrelationships among different social, economic, and environmental processes, the conflict and adjustment of interests in the hope of finding solutions that are acceptable to all.