Assembly creates Sustainable Development Commission, endorses 'Agenda 21.' (United Nations General Assembly)

The creation of a new, high-level Commission on Sustainable Development to oversee the implementation of "Agenda 21"--the wide-ranging plan adopted at the UN Conference on Environment and Development--was approved by the General Assembly on 22 December.

Following a four-day debate on the official follow-up to the historic "Earth Summit" held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 to 14 June 1992, the Assembly addressed a number of environment-related recommendations by its Second Committee Economic and Financial). Among them, it established a negotiating body for a new convention to combat desertification, decided to convene a Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States, and declared 22 March as World Day for Water.

The Assembly asked "resolution 47/191) that the Commission on Sustainable Development be set up by the Economic and Social Council to ensure effective follow-up to the Rio Conference, enhance international cooperation and rationalize intergovernmental decision-making for the integration of environment and development issues.

"The challenge after Rio is to maintain the momentum of commitment to sustainable development, to transform it into policies and practice, and to give it effective and coordinated organizational support", said Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali on 2 November. The UN, he said, "must put its development objectives on a par with its political and security commitments".

When it begins work in New York in May 1993, the 53-member Commission is to consider holding high-level ministerial meetings to provide "political impetus" to the commitments and decisions of the Earth Summit.

"The Commission has the potential to be a very special intergovernmental agency", said Ismail Razali of Malaysia, Chairman of the Working Group on the Conference. It could be "the one forum where we could re-establish a dialogue between the North and the South", he added.

The new body's functions will include: monitoring progress towards the UN target of providing 0.7 per cent of gross national product of industrialized countries for official development assistance; considering, where appropriate, information on the implementation of environmental conventions, including treaties on biodiversity and climate change, opened for signature in Rio; and recommending action to the Assembly, through the Economic and Social Council, and based on the Secretary-General's report, as well as input from competent non-governmental organizations, including the scientific and private sectors.

The Commission is also to actively interact with other UN intergovernmental bodies, regional commissions and development and financial institutions, including the Global Environment Facility--a fund established in 1990 by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank.

A high-level Advisory Board, consisting of eminent persons from all regions of the world, will provide input to the Commission and the Council through the Secretary-General.

Advancing |Agenda 21'

In addition to endorsing (47/190)agenda 21, the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, and the Nonlegally Binding Authoritative Statement of Principles for a Global Consensus on the Management, Conservation and Sustainable Development of All Types of Forests, the Assembly moved to advance other proposals of the Earth Summit.

By resolution 47/188, it established an intergovernmental Negotiating Committee to elaborate a new international convention to combat desertification in countries experiencing serious drought and/or desertification, particularly in Africa. The Committee is to meet six times with a view to finalizing the treaty by June 1994.

The Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of Small Island Developing States is to convene (47/189) in Barbados for two weeks in April 1994, in order to adopt measures enabling such States to cope effectively, creatively and sustainably with environmental changes and reduce threats to marine and coastal resources. A Preparatory Committee for that Conference will begin work in April and hold a two-week substantive session at UN Headquarters in August.

On the basis of other Agenda 21 proposals, the Assembly decided (47/192) to hold in 1993 an intergovernmental conference, under UN auspices, on straddling fish stocks fisheries populations whose ranges lie both within and beyond exclusive economic zones) and highly migratory fish stocks.

States were invited (47/193) to observe each year, on 22 March, the World Day for Water, to promote public awareness of the need to conserve and develop water resources and implement related recommendations of Agenda 21.

Furthermore, recommendations on capacity-building were to be implemented (47/194) by the UNDP, through concrete action along the lines of "CAPACITY 21", a recently launched initiative to help developing countries institute their own sustainable development programmes. The initiative focuses on human resources training, strengthening key regional and national institutions, such as universities, research centres and government and nongovernmental offices, and facilitating the use of environmentally-sound technologies.

The Assembly also welcomed (44/195) the adoption on 9 May 1992 and the subsequent signing in Rio by a large number of States of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. The new instrument is considered "a first step in a cooperative response to the common concern for the change in the Earth's climate and its adverse effects".

Regarding the environmental consequences of the 1991 Gulf war, the Assembly also asked (47/151) that the capacity of the Regional Organization for the Protection of the Marine Environment be strengthened to deal with the ecological damage to Kuwait and other States in the region.