Indian Legal System > Civil Laws > Environmental Laws > Sustainable Development > Stockholm Declaration
The term ‘sustainable development’ was first used in the Cocoyoc Declaration on Environment and Development held at Cocoyoc in Mexico between 8-12 October 1974. The symposium, chaired by Barbara Ward, president of the International Institute for Environment and Development, was jointly sponsored by the U. N. Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) and the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP). Since then, it has become a buzzword for international organizations dedicated to achieving environmentally benign or beneficial development.
Stockholm Declaration, 1972:
Global inter-governmental action on environmental issues began with the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm (Sweden) from 5th to 16th June 1972. This led to the ‘Stockholm Declaration’ and an action plan with over 100 recommendations on environmental assessment, management, and support measures. The Stockholm slogan was “Only One Earth”. The environmental debate centred around the Club of Rome Report on the “Limits to Growth”, and talk of economic development (the precursor of Sustainable Development).The Report highlights the consequences of unrestrained growth and the linkages between several global problems.
Issues Under Discussion at Stockholm Conference:
- Problems and management of human settlements;
- Natural resources management;
- Pollution control measures;
- Social and cultural aspects of environmental issues;
- Development and its relation with the environment.
Declaration of the Conference:
- The Stockholm Declaration on Environment comprises a proclamation of 26 principles and submission of recommendations. Some of the important principles relating to environmental protection in the Stockholm declaration are as follows:-
Principle 1: Right to Protect Environment:
The man has the fundamental right to freedom, equality and adequate conditions of life, in an environment of a quality that permits a life of dignity and well-being, and he bears a solemn responsibility to protect and improve the environment for present and future generations.
Principle 2: Management of Natural Resources:
The natural resources of the earth, including the air, water, land, flora and fauna and especially representative samples of natural ecosystems, must be safeguarded for the benefit of present and future generations through careful planning or management as appropriate.
Principle 3: Management of Renewable Resources:
The capacity of the earth to produce vital renewable resources must be maintained and, wherever practicable, restored or improved.
Principle 4: Conservation of Wildlife:
The man has a special responsibility to safeguard and wisely manage the heritage of wildlife and its habitat, which are now gravely imperilled by a combination of adverse factors.
Principle 5: Management of Non-Renewable Resources:
The non-renewable resources must be employed in a way as to guard against the danger of their future exhaustion and to ensure that benefits from such employment are shared by all.
Principle 6: Pollution Control:
The discharge of toxic substances or other substances and the release of heat, in such quantities or concentrations as to exceed the capacity of the environment to render them harmless, must be halted in order to ensure that serious or irreversible damage is not inflicted upon ecosystems. The just struggle of the people of all against pollution should be supported.
Principle 7: Prevention of Pollution of Seas:
States shall take all possible steps to prevent pollution of the seas by substances which are liable to create hazards to human health, to harm living resources and marine life, to damage amenities or to interfere with other legitimate uses of the sea.
Principle 8: Economic and Social Development:
Economic and social development is essential for ensuring a favourable living and working environment for man and for creating conditions necessary for the improvement of the quality of life.
Principle 9: Underdevelopment and Natural Disaster:
Environmental deficiencies generated by the conditions of underdevelopment and natural disasters can best be remedied by the transfer of substantial quantities of financial and technological assistance.
Principle 10: Stability of Prices of Primary Commodities:
For the developing countries, the stability of prices and adequate earnings for primary commodities and raw materials are essential to environmental management.
Principle 11: Environmental Policies:
The environmental policies should enhance and not adversely affect the present or the future development potential of developing countries. The state should adopt an integrated and coordinated approach to their development planning.
Principle 12: Environment Protection Education:
Resources should be made available to preserve and improve the environment. Education in the environmental matter is essential and mass media should help in this.
Principle 13: Rational Management of Resources:
In order to achieve rational management of resources, States should adopt an integrated and coordinated approach to their development planning.
Principle 14: Rational Planning:
Rational planning constitutes an essential tool for reconciling any conflict between the needs of development and the need to protect and improve the environment.
Principle 15: Human Settlements:
Planning must be applied to human settlements and urbanization with a view to avoiding adverse effects on the environment.
Principle 16: Human Population:
Demographic policies which are without prejudice to basic human rights and which are deemed appropriate by Governments concerned should be applied in those regions where the rate of population growth are likely to have adverse effects on the environment.
Principle 17: Setting of Environmental Pollution Control Agencies at National Level:
Appropriate national institutions must be entrusted with the task of planning, managing or controlling the environmental resources.
Principle 18: Use of Science and Technology:
Science and technology must be applied to the identification, avoidance, and control of environmental risks and the solution of environmental problems.
Principle 19: Education in Environmental Matters:
Education in environmental matters is essential in order to broaden the basis for an enlightened opinion and responsible conduct by individuals, enterprises, and communities in protecting and improving the environment in its full human dimension.
Principle 20: Further Scientific Research:
Scientific research and development in the context of environmental problems must be promoted in all countries, especially developing countries.
Principle 21: Rights and Responsibility of Sovereign Nation:
States have the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental 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 22: Development of International Law:
States shall cooperate to develop further the international law regarding liability and compensation for the victims of pollution and other environmental damage.
Principle 23: Implementation of Agenda by Every Country:
Without prejudice to such criteria as may be agreed upon by the international community, or to standards which will have to be determined nationally, it will be essential in all cases to consider the systems of values prevailing in each country, and the extent of the applicability of standards which are valid for the most advanced countries but which may be inappropriate and of unwarranted social cost for the developing countries.
Principle 24: International Cooperation:
International matters concerning the protection and improvement of the environment should be handled in a cooperative spirit by all countries, big and small, on an equal footing.
Principle 25: Coordinated and Dynamic Role:
States shall ensure that international organizations play a coordinated, efficient and a dynamic role for the protection and improvement of the environment.
Principle 26: Ban on Nuclear Weapons:
Man and his environment must be spared the effects of nuclear weapons and all other means of mass destruction.
Note:
The two principles 21 and 22 represent “the most significant consensus that has been reached in the field of international co-operation among states respecting environmental preservation”.
Action Plan of the Stockholm Declaration:
The Stockholm declaration also drafted the action plan for the human environment and its development, which required
- The global environmental assessment program called ‘earth watch’.
- Environmental management activities; and
- International measures to support the national actions of assessment and management.
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