Global Governance and the UN: An Unfinished Journey

6 Sustainable Development

6 Sustainable development •฀Antecedents:฀From฀Development฀to฀Conservation฀to฀ ฀ Sustainability •฀Knowledge฀Gaps:฀A฀Clear฀UN฀Contribution •฀Normative฀Gaps:฀Sustainable฀Development฀as฀the฀Norm •฀Policy฀Gaps:฀Déjà฀Vu฀All฀Over฀Again •฀Institutional฀Gaps:฀UNEP,฀UNESCO,฀and฀the฀IWC •฀Compliance฀Gaps:฀Still฀Searching •฀Conclusion:฀Conference฀Diplomacy฀and฀Global฀Governance Former unEp executive director mostafa Tolba recalls that the term “sustainable development” emerged in unEp’s governing council in the early 1980s. previous incarnations were “eco-development,” “development without destruction,” and “environmentally sound development”—all attemptsto tiesocialdevelopmentandeconomic growth to environmental protection.1 This chapter links the previous chapter on development and the next chapter, which is about environmental protection, by focusing on the un’s engagement with the concept of sustainable development. Early in 2008 we once again were reminded of the pertinence of this topic when the world was blasted with a major crisis as rapidly rising food prices threatened the social cohesion and political stability of a number of countries. The united nations formed a task force to confront an old question: were the malthusians right after all? The malthusian thesis has always been as popular as it was simple. it states that the world cannot sustain an ever-increasing growth in population and food supply. its adherents argue that as growing populations create stress on the food supply and generate food scarcity, the population will decline. The world’s sustainability problems demonstrate the contemporary relevance of the malthusian thesis. in industrial societies, these include overconsumption. The sustainability problems of developing countries 200 develoPment include managing economic growth without destroying the resource base, adjusting to pressures of population growth, and sustaining patterns of production in agriculture while striving for rapid industrialization. The most recent manifestations of the problem of sustainability include the challenge of climate change, which cuts across the global north-south divide; a growing scarcity of water and energy; galloping desertification; and loss of nature’s life support systems for a variety of species. in brief, how can growth be managed to sustain an acceptable lifestyle while ensuring equity for different peoples within and among countries and across generations? Antecedents:฀ From฀Development฀to฀Conservation฀to฀Sustainability at the time of the un’s establishment, the dominant development paradigm was self-sustaining economic growth through industrialization. When, how, and from where did knowledge first arise of problems with this model and of the need to conserve resources? When and how did the norm of conservation arise and become established? how was that converted into public policy around the world, and which institutions were the lead actors in the conversion process? how successful have efforts been to move from policy to action and to correct individual tendencies to deviate from the norm and policy? in particular, of course, where is the united nations in this narrative? since at least 1798, when the reverend Thomas r. malthus first wrote his “Essay on the principle of population,”2 people have worried about the “carrying capacity” of the planet. For the first half of the twentieth century, the most evident concerns about the quality of the human environment centered on the concept of “conservation,” which refers to preserving natural resources for future use instead of exhausting them indiscriminately. The conservation movement began in the united states in the first decade of the twentieth century, when u.s. president Theodore roosevelt made conservation a cornerstone of his presidency. roosevelt embraced conservation by creating national parks, stopping the sale of public lands, and pushing for the creation of a new cabinet-level department of the interior for the purpose of resource management. a key figure of the conservation movement was Gifford pinchot, chief of the u.s. department of agriculture’s forestry division from 1898 to 1910. pinchot firmly believed sUstAinAble develoPment 201 that natural resources should be used, albeit carefully, and that nature’s methods of control could be vastly improved with methods of scientific management. in The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West, patricia nelson Limerick recounts two anecdotes that foreshadowed the birth of ecology and environmentalism: in 1891, Gifford pinchot—then a self-confessed “tenderfoot”— first saw the Grand canyon. he was speechless, but his arbitrarily acquired traveling companion, an office boy named doran, was not. While pinchot “strove to grasp the vastness and the beauty of the greatest sight this world has to offer,” doran kept repeating, “my, ain’t it pretty?” pinchot remembered, “i...