Development without Destruction: The UN and Global Resource Management

2 UN Involvement with Natural Resource Management at the National and Transboundary Levels

2 UN Involvement with Natural Resource Management at the National and Transboundary Levels • UN Charter Responsibilities in the Economic and Social Field • Early Postwar Concerns • The Rise of Economic Nationalism • Deepening Resource Sovereignty: Protection for Newly Independent States • Broadening Resource Sovereignty: The Rush to Exploit Marine Resources • A Major Milestone: The Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment • Toward a New International Economic Order? • A New Constitution for the Seas and the Oceans • UNEP Guidelines and the Management of Shared Natural Resources • The 1992 Earth Summit • Post-Rio Developments • Indigenous Sovereignty over Natural Resources • Assessment This chapter maps the history of the involvement of the United Nations with natural resource management at the national and transboundary levels, from the organization ’s early days up to recent times.1 The term “natural resources” does not figure in the UN Charter, nor does “environment” or “sustainable development.” Yet the UN soon became involved with issues relating to the management of natural resources as part of postwar efforts to reconstruct war-torn Europe. Since then, natu- UN Involvement with Natural Resource Management 35 ral resource management has gradually become one of the main concerns of the United Nations. This chapter briefly presents the Charter responsibilities of the UN in the economic and social field. It then sketches the various stages that marked the movement toward strengthening, deepening, and broadening national sovereignty over natural resources as well as the opposite movement that led to the gradual qualification of a state’s sovereignty over its resources with provisions to protect the environment. While these developments never followed a single path and cannot be neatly separated into historic periods, the chapter nevertheless tries to present a coherent narrative that brings the reader from early postwar concerns with natural resource management to the rise of economic nationalism, the protection of newly independent states, and the extension of sovereignty over marine resources. It discusses the beginnings of an environmental regime with the Stockholm conference, the debates on a New International Economic Order, the negotiation of a new constitution for the oceans, the Rio Conference on Environment and Development, the various post-Rio summits, and finally the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007. UN Charter Responsibilities in the Economic and Social Field The Charter of the United Nations does not refer at all to the concept of natural resources or to the goal of conservation of the environment. Obviously, the new world organization was first of all meant to restore and maintain peace and security. Only in this specific field was the organization vested with far-reaching enforcement powers . However, one of the Charter’s main differences from the Covenant of the League of Nations was that it included the promotion of international economic and social cooperation.2 Thus, the preamble refers to the organization’s determination to employ “international machinery for the promotion of economic and social advancement of all peoples.” Moreover, Article 1 states that one of the purposes of the United Nations is to achieve international cooperation in solving international economic and social problems. This is elaborated in Chapter IX, “International Economic and Social Co-operation,” most notably in Articles 55 and 56. Article 55 states that the economic and social purposes of the United Nations include “higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development .” It is noteworthy that these economic and social objectives are subordinated to the all-embracing goal of “the creation of conditions of stability and well-being which are necessary for peaceful and friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.”3 ECOSOC was established to implement these functions of the United Nations.4 Reference may also be made to similar objectives that are applicable to non-selfgoverning territories and trust territories. Charter article 73 stipulates that member 36                     Development without Destruction states with responsibilities for such non-self-governing territories have “a sacred obligation to promote to the utmost . . . the well-being of the inhabitants of these territories .”5 This includes the duty “to promote constructive measures of development.” In a similar vein, Chapter XII of the Charter states that one of the basic objectives of the international trusteeship system is the promotion of the “political, economic, social and educational advancement of the inhabitants of the trust territories.” While there can be little doubt that maintaining peace and security was...