Other documents: (Some extra short notes)

1. Common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR)

CBDR was formalized in international law at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and
Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.

Principle of international environmental law establishing that all states are responsible for addressing global
environmental destruction yet not equally responsible. The principle balances, on the one hand, the need for all
states to take responsibility for global environmental problems and, on the other hand, the need to recognize the
wide differences in levels of economic development between states. These differences in turn are linked to the
states’ contributions to, as well as their abilities to address, these problems.

CBDR resolves a tension between two older notions of environmental governance. On the one hand, the idea of
a “common responsibility” spoke directly to the notion of “common heritage of mankind,” acknowledged by a
1967 UN resolution that had first emerged as an expression of concern for the loss of natural resources belonging
to all (especially maritime, such as whales and tuna). The 1992 UN negotiations were organized around the four
key themes of climate change, deforestation, desertification, and biodiversity degradation—environmental
problems whose global repercussions brought home the need for a collective response, which needed in turn to be
grounded in a common responsibility. In legal terms, CBDR describes the shared obligation of two or more states
toward the protection of a particular environmental resource. On the other hand, the need to establish variegated
levels at which different states can effectively enter into a collective response, according to both their capacities
and their levels of contribution to the problem, had been recognized since the first UN conference on the
environment, in 1972 (it was featured explicitly in the Stockholm Declaration).

2. Convention on Climate Change

Because of UNCED's political prominence, many other international environmental debates were merged into the
process, such as those of the conventions on climate change and biodiversity, which were not negotiated at
UNCED or in the PrepCom meetings but were signed in Rio following separate negotiations. Formal international
discussion of a convention on climate change began in 1988 with the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC), an advisory body of scientists and officials that assessed comprehensively climate
science, impacts, and response strategies. IPCC served as a forum for "prenegotiation," because many of its
participants expected it to be followed by formal negotiations under the same authority. Instead, the UN General
Assembly passed a resolution in December 1990 that established the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee
(INC). After five negotiating sessions, however, discussions stalled between the United States and other
industrialized countries, particularly those of the European Community, which argued that the convention should
contain specific commitments to limit emissions of carbon dioxide--at present the largest contributor to human-
induced changes in radiative forcing--to 1990 levels by 2000. The United States argued that such limits were
premature and lacked sufficient scientific evidence and that any controls should be enacted comprehensively on
all gases contributing to climate change.

INC chairman Jean Ripert of France broke the deadlock last May by drafting a compromise document that requires
industrialized countries to develop national emission limits and emission inventories and to report periodically on
their progress, without targets or dates. Instead of detailed commitments, the countries would accept a circuitously
worded goal of returning their greenhouse-gas emissions to "earlier levels" by the turn of the century. All the
major participants accepted the convention, which was finalized on 9 May 1992, so that there would be a treaty
to sign in Rio. Although the treaty lacks specific emission targets, it contains a very strong objective: "stabilization
of greenhouse-gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic
interference with the climate system . . . within a time frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally."3

The convention establishes a financial assistance mechanism to support its implementation in developing
countries, to be administered by the Global Environmental Facility on an interim basis. Also, the convention
established institutional mechanisms for periodic review and an update of commitments, including the scheduling
of regular conferences. Finally, two new subsidiary bodies were established by the treaty, one on science and
technology and one on implementation. Like IPCC but unlike the Montreal protocol, membership in these bodies
is restricted to government representatives. Representatives from 153 countries signed the climate convention in
Rio, though only 50 ratifications were needed.

3. Convention on Biodiversity

Discussions for a convention on biological diversity, or biodiversity, which concluded on 22 May 1992 in Nairobi,
were initiated in 1988 by the United Nations Environment Programme's (UNEP) Governing Council. The issues
of biodiversity and biotechnology were originally treated by separate working groups, but were merged to be
handled by a single intergovernmental negotiating committee in 1991, over the objections of the United States
and other nations. The treaty has three goals: the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, and the
fair sharing of products made from genestocks. To advance these goals, the signatories must develop plans for
protecting habitat and species; provide funds and technology to help developing countries provide protection;
ensure commercial access to biological resources for development and share revenues fairly among source
countries and developers; and establish safety regulations and accept liability for risks associated with
biotechnology development. Financial assistance, initially set at $200 million, will ultimately be channeled
through some mechanism under the control of the signatories but will be administered by the Global
Environmental Facility on an interim basis.

The negotiations were plagued by conflict over the financial mechanism, the sharing of benefits, and
biotechnology regulation. France originally threatened not to sign the treaty because it did not include a list of
global biodiversity-rich regions; Japan threatened not to sign because it feared biotechnology regulation. At the
last moment, both relented, and only the United States refused to sign the treaty because officials felt that the
financial mechanism represented an open-ended commitment with insufficient oversight and control; that the
benefit-sharing provisions were incompatible with existing international regimes for intellectual property rights;
and that the requirement to regulate the biotechnology industry would needlessly stifle innovation. Although only
30 ratifications were needed for it to enter into force, 153 nations signed the convention in Rio.

4. Forest Principles

When an early attempt to negotiate a treaty on the protection of global forests failed, the PrepCom added a legally
nonbinding declaration on forests to its own agenda. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) had
discussed a forest treaty before the establishment of UNCED and recommended in November 1990 that a treaty
be concluded in time for UNCED. Organized treaty negotiations never got under way, however, in part because
governments widely mistrusted FAO but lacked an alternative forum. Early UNCED PrepComs discussed the
possibility of a forest treaty but were inhibited by strong differences between industrialized countries, which
wanted a treaty focusing on tropical rain forests, and developing countries, led by Malaysia, which insisted on the
inclusion of temperate and boreal forests. The statement of 17 nonbinding principles negotiated at the last moment
in Rio explicitly includes all types of forests. The most contentious issue at UNCED was whether a forest treaty
should be created. Although some delegations advocated adding a statement to the forest principles that either
explicitly called for or excluded a future treaty, the final document merely commits governments to keeping the
principles "under assessment for their adequacy with regard to further international cooperation on forest issues."4

5. Agenda 21

Agenda 21 is the only document signed at UNCED that attempts to embrace the entire environment and
development agenda. It is also the largest product of UNCED, comprising 40 chapters and 800 pages and states
goals and priorities regarding a dozen major resource, environmental, social, legal, financial, and institutional
issues. Each chapter contains a description of a program and its cost estimate.

Agenda 21 is not a legally binding document but a "work plan," or "agenda for action," with a political
commitment to pursue a set of goals. It may become "soft law," if, as is likely, the UN General Assembly adopts
it as a resolution this fall. Agenda 21 includes estimates of the annual costs of its programs in developing countries
from 1993 to 2000, of which about $125 billion per year will come from the industrialized countries. Although it
may be only soft law, the contentious negotiation of many parts of Agenda 21 underscores its importance to the
signatories. Most of the text of Agenda 21 was finalized at the last PrepCom meeting in April. The remaining text
was left to be negotiated at UNCED by eight informal "contact groups" that addressed the most contentious issues:
atmosphere, biodiversity and biotechnology, finance, forests, freshwater resources, institutions, legal instruments,
and technology transfer.