Notes from the Chair: Rescuing the Commission on Sustainable Development From the Driftwood of Deserted and Dead Debate.

The Seventh Session of the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD7), which culminated in a meeting of 60 Government Ministers in New York in April 1999, needed to make some tangible progress.

It did.

The Commission is a review body that was set up in the wake of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 to monitor progress in implementing Agenda 21 - the principles for sustainable development that were adopted at the Summit. This year, the main themes on which it focused were the world's oceans, small island States, the burgeoning global tourism industry, and sustainable consumption and production patterns.

For New Zealand, with its slender resources, to find itself in the chair was a little unnerving. We had not been on the Commission (which numbers 53 States) before, let alone in the chair. We knew very little about the CSD's processes, but soon learnt that in some quarters the Commission had acquired a reputation as a talk shop. Many feared that it was rapidly generating into a forum that would soon be deserted by Ministers who found the experience, in the words of one of them, "an exercise in banality".

As a consequence, I determined that our primary goal would be a procedural one: to rescue the reputation of the CSD as a forum which environment and development Ministers attended because it provided a unique and valuable opportunity to advance global issues on a broad front.

We thought that this would be best achieved by injecting a good measure of genuinely interactive debate (in place of sterile set-piece speeches) and a commitment to record disagreements, as well as agreements, to avoid the turgid, lowest common denominator text that so often issues from the maws of multilateral negotiations.

We did enjoy one stroke of luck. I was to be the first CSD Chairman to chair a meeting I had organized. (Before this year, bizarrely, someone chaired a meeting that someone else had organized, who then organized the next for someone else to chair).

To advance these goals, I travelled extensively to meet ministers from countries that are members of the Commission and tried to build momentum for change in capitals, while a small but dedicated team of New Zealand diplomats worked on the New York diplomatic establishment.

It was worth the effort. The ministerial segment of the conference was, in UN terms, a new departure. Meetings started on time, read statements were kept in their place, and some genuine debate ensued.

The success of our approach was, I think, best gauged by the fact that an informal ministerial meeting held in New York immediately after CSD7, to plan for the next round of climate change negotiations, was emboldened by the informal approach of the Commission to "banish" ministerial statements and resort instead to focussed informal discussion on key points of disagreement. If this practice spreads to other multilateral fora, we will have started a minor revolution in the way that these negotiations function.

But it was not all procedural reform. On substance too, CSD7 delivered some tangible progress. We achieved a major breakthrough in gaining unanimous support for a recommendation that will, if accepted by the General Assembly, considerably beef up the annual Assembly debate on oceans. For the first time, there will be a place where ocean issues that are going nowhere in other fora can be resurrected and exposed to international scrutiny.

There was good, strong text calling for action on the use of flags of convenience by fishing vessels engaging in illegal fishing on the high seas and for clear decisions on a host of other matters.

Tourism is a microcosm for the sustain-able development debate, with major potential benefits for countries and people, but also environmental, cultural, social, health and other costs, if it is not managed in a sensitive and sustainable way.

As tourism was not addressed as a specific development sector at the 1992 Earth Summit, CSD7 was charged with developing a work programme from scratch.

Representatives from business, local authorities, trade unions and non-governmental organizations contributed their ideas to a vigorous dialogue, which also involved Governments and representatives of international organizations.

The high-level segment generated a number of very specific action-points on tourism which, hopefully, can make an early difference. These include a call to reduce packaging and other waste being exported to developing countries, especially the Small Island Developing States; in-flight educational videos on sustainable development in relation to tourism; and support for pilot projects on community planning in coastal areas.

CSD7 also acted as a preparatory body for the twenty-second special session of the General Assembly on Small Island Developing States. The text for the special session identities a number of areas for priority action and how these should be implemented. The priority areas include climate change, climate variability and sea-level rise, natural disasters, freshwater resources, coastal and marine resources, energy and tourism.

The Commission on Sustainable Development has a vital role to play as the only truly global body which takes a strategic view on environmental and developmental issues. It will, in my view, enhance its influence if it keeps its focus on strategic review rather than becoming just another international meeting that negotiates consensus texts.

Mr. Simon Upton, who chaired the seventh session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development, is the Minister for the Environment of New Zealand.