The World Commission on Environment and Development and the Brundtland Report

The Brundtland Report propounded the now famous definition of sustainable development:

254 _{Ibid 14.}

255 _{Ibid 15.} 256 _Ibid.

257 _{Robert Goodland and George Ledec, ‘Neoclassical Economics and Principles of Sustainable}

Development’, (1987) 38 Ecological Modelling 19, 37, 39, 40. Barbier also moved in this direction at this time, those less emphatically, by arguing that ‘if the sustainability of the ecological processes underlying economic activity is recognized to have value, then sustainability must explicitly be included’ as a policy objective: see Edward B Barbier, ‘The Concept of Sustainable Economic Development’, (1987) 14(2) Environmental Conservation 101, 108.

258 _{See for example William E Rees, ‘A Role for Environmental Assessment in Achieving Sustainable} Development’, (1988) 8 Environmental Impact Assessment Review 273; Richard B Norgaard, ‘Sustainable Development: A Co-Evolutionary View’ (1988) 20(6) Futures 606; Herman E Daly, ‘Toward Some Operational Principles of Sustainable Development’ (1990) 2(1) Ecological Economics 1; Robert Costanza and Herman E Daly, ‘Natural Capital and Sustainable Development’ (1992) 6(1) Conservation Biology 37; R B Norgaard, ‘Sustainability as Intergenerational Equity: Economic Theory and Environmental Planning’ (1992) 12 Environmental Impact Assessment Review 85.

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Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:

• The concept of 'needs', in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and

• The idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.259

While this formulation broke new ground in encapsulating the development aspirations of the global South and the environmental degradation concerns of the global North in a single concept,260 _{Brundtland did not develop a normative theory of intra- or}

intergenerational justice in support of its approach, making only general references to the common interest and a single reference to moral obligation.261 _{Instead, the undoubted} legitimacy of SD was built on the WCED’s UN mandate; its majority membership from the developing world; on depth of participation, involving deliberative meetings and public hearings in all regions of the world over a period of three years; and ultimately on public acceptance, illustrated by what the Commission’s Secretary General later described as ‘intense’ public support for the Brundtland recommendation to convene a global conference to review action on the report.262

Although the Brundtland Report did not propose a normative theory, it did annex proposed legal principles, employing the same basic ‘rights and duties’ paradigm of the Stockholm Declaration and embodied in a proposed ‘universal declaration on

environmental protection’ (see Box 3.2).

I.GENERAL PRINCIPLES, RIGHTS AND RESPONSIBILITIES

Fundamental Human Right

1. All human beings have the fundamental right to an environment that is adequate for their health and well-being.

Inter-Generational Equity

2. States shall conserve and use the environment and natural resources for the benefit of present and future generations.

Conservation and Sustainable Use

259 _{WCED, above n 7, 43.}

260 _{Dovers and Hussey characterise the achievement as ‘push[ing] as shift in thinking from environment} versus development to environment and development’: see Dovers and Hussey, above n 42, 9.

261 _{Ibid, for example at 46; 57. Others have made the related point that the WCED did not adopt a theory of} needs: see Michael Redclift, ‘The Meaning of Sustainable Development’ (1992) 23(3) Geoforum 395, 395. 262 _{See Jim MacNeill, ‘Brundtland +25; Rio +20’ (2014) 44(1–2) Environmental Policy and Law 1, 30.}

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3. States shall maintain ecosystems and ecological processes essential for the functioning of the biosphere, shall preserve biological diversity, and shall observe the principle of

optimum sustainable yield in the use of living natural resources and ecosystems. …

Box 3.2 Extract from Summary of Proposed Legal Principles for Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development Adopted by the World Commission on

Environment and Development Experts Group on Environmental Law263

Further, while Brundtland may have been relatively silent on the normative basis for SD, it contained a strong ‘problem-solution’ narrative. The future of humanity was threatened by poverty and environmental degradation; not only did this degradation harm the

environment but it dampened economic growth.264 _{The solution was to adopt a social goal} of SD, which meant, among other things, living within the world’s ecological means:

[M]any of us live beyond the world’s ecological means … sustainable development requires … encourag[ing] consumption standards that are within the bounds of the ecologically possible.265

This in turn meant that:

The process of economic development must be more soundly based on the realities the stock of capital that sustains it …266

And that:

If needs are to be met on a sustainable basis the Earth’s natural resource base must be conserved and enhanced.267

The report laid out a general prescription for achieving this goal, based on concepts of maximum sustainable yield for renewable resources; limiting the depletion of non-renewable resources to foreclose as few future options as possible; and maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem integrity.268 _{A key implication of this prescription is that substantive policy}

263 _{WCED, above n 7, 332, 347. The proposed declaration embodied the recommendations of a ‘legal experts} group’, then yet to be published. See J G Lammers and R D Munro, [on behalf of] the Experts Group on Environmental Law of the World Commission on Environment and Development, Environmental protection and sustainable development: legal principles and recommendations, (World Commission on Environment and

Development, Experts Group on Environmental Law; Graham & Trotman: M. Nijhoff, 1987). 264 _{WCED, above n 7, 29–37.}

265 _{Ibid 43–44.} 266 _{Ibid 52.} 267 _{Ibid 57.} 268 _{Ibid 45–46.}

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principles such as ecosystem integrity would need to be held together with a policy- integration glue:

In essence, sustainable development is a process of change in which the exploitation of resources, the direction of investments, the orientation of technological development and institutional change are all in harmony and enhance both current and future potential to meet human needs and aspirations.269

The Pathway to Sustainable Development

No doubt with a view to making SD appealing to governments, Brundtland cast the challenge, not simply as one of living within the earth’s ecological means, but as one of reviving growth while changing its quality to conserve and enhance the resource base.270 That pathway involved not just the adoption of SD as a ‘global ethic’, but six priorities for legal and institutional change.271 _{While space prevents a discussion of these priorities here,} the underlying point for domestic policy is that the policy integration required by SD went far beyond an intellectual process; it required radical institutional change under which the proactive maintenance of the environmental resource base would become part of the policy mandate of all agencies, not just environment agencies.272 _{A further implication was} the need for major investment in restoring that resource base, not just to offset past damage, but to ‘catch up with the rising incidence of future damage.’273

Policy Significance of Brundtland

Dovers and Handmer argue that the value of SD is its potential for policy integration: issues previously seen as separate, ranging from deforestation and pollution to over- population and poverty, ‘are now apt to be considered firmly together in political and

269 _{Ibid 46.}

270 _{Ibid Annex: ‘Tokyo Declaration’, 363–366. In a similar vein, in the overview to its report, the Brundtland} report envisaged (at 1–2) ‘a new era of economic growth’, one that ‘must be based on policies that sustain and expand the environmental resource base’, was conditional on ‘decisive political action’, for which it offered, ‘…not a detailed blueprint for action, but a pathway by which the peoples of the world may enlarge their spheres of cooperation.’

271 _{Ibid 314 et seq. The six priorities were described as ‘getting at the sources; dealing with the effects;} assessing global risks; making informed choices; providing the legal means; and investing in our future’. 272 _{See WCED, above n 7, 310–342.}

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intellectual debates’.274 _{They also make the significant point that the Brundtland definition} is based on the twin moral principles of intergenerational and intragenerational equity.275 Similarly, Meadowcroft argues that the broad acceptance of SD may have been due the intuitive appeal of the ‘fundamental normative idea’ of continuing the quest for a better life, while seeking to meet the needs of the poor and taking care not to ‘foul the pond’ for future generations, which appeared to offer a way out of the ‘growth versus environment’ polarity of earlier debate.276 _{An advantage of moral principles is they are generally based on} enduring values of foundational importance to people. As a result, support for a concept that is based on moral principles is more likely itself to endure, in contrast to a simple consensus, which may be transitory. On the other hand, Lafferty and Langhelle argue that a consensus itself has an ethical or moral value, with the result that the widespread appeal of SD was:

[p]ossibly due to the concept’s dual ethical foundation. By giving expression to both “realist” (natural-law) and “consensualist” (democratic) norms, it can claim support with respect to a broader spectrum of moral imperatives.277

The Brundtland Reportalso attracted significant criticism, especially that the

accommodation of environment and development in the form of SD was achieved at the expense of implying that one can ‘have one’s cake and eat it too’.278 _{Criticisms specific to} Brundtland are not considered here because the report, despite its great significance, represented an intermediate policy outcome. It was the later global conference and the instruments it generated, including the Rio Declaration (see 3.2.7), that provided authority for any policy paradigm that might be distilled from the broader UN sustainability process. The ‘have one’s cake and eat it’ argument is just one of a number of apparent

contradictions in the broader concept of SD that are considered below. Yet one point should be made now: it was not just the Brundtland Report that promoted both

development and constraints on development. Despite expressing ‘grave concern’ that the major cause of the continuing deterioration of the global environment was ‘the

274 _{Stephen Dovers and John W Handmer, ‘Contradictions in Sustainability’ (1993) 20(3) Environmental}

Conservation 217, 217. 275 _Ibid.

276 _{James Meadowcroft, ‘Sustainable Development: A New(Ish) Idea for a New Century?’ (2000) 48 Political}

Studies 370, 371.

277 _{William W Lafferty and Oluf Langhelle, ‘Sustainable Development as Concept and Norm’, above n 86, 1} [emphasis added].

278 _{See for example O Langhelle, ‘Sustainable Development: Exploring the Ethics of Our Common Future’} (1999) 20(2) International Political Science Review 129 141.

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unsustainable pattern of production and consumption, particularly in industrialized countries’, the General Assembly, when convening the Rio Conference and in the same

resolution, directly linked economic growth with environment protection, affirming:

the importance of a supportive international economic climate conducive to sustained economic growth and development in all countries for the protection and sound management of the environment …279

If the cake argument is valid, there are many who must take responsibility for it. Two years later, ‘deeply concerned by the continuing deterioration of the state of the environment and the serious degradation of the global life-support systems’ and ‘gravely concerned that the major cause of the continuing deterioration of the global environment is the unsustainable pattern of production and consumption, particularly in industrialized countries’, the United Nations, acting on a recommendation in OCF to hold an

international conference to promote follow-up action,280 _{convened the Rio Conference for} 1992, with its central mandate being to:

elaborate strategies and measures to halt and reverse the effects of environmental degradation in the context of increased national and international efforts to promote sustainable and

environmentally sound development in all countries.281