Issue linkages are considered essential in order to demonstrate the common advantage of adhering to a convention and later to a protocol to the different parties involved.
The history of negotiations relating to the 1958 LOS (Law of the Sea Conference) illus-trated the necessity of establishing issue linkages. The package relating to the 1958 Convention envisaged three 'mini conventions' that dealt with specific issues. The disadvantage of such a process is that states can choose to adhere only to those conven-tions that leave them with a net advantage. This in turn leads to disagreement and confrontation and ultimately in the case of the 1958 LOSto failure. For countries or groups of similar countries a single issue represents a clear gain or loss and therefore may prove non-negotiable, unless it can be combined with agreements on other issues that offset the losses. In the latter case, there may exist the possibility of an 'exchange' around issues for joint gain.
Issue linkages form part of both the conventions and also find a place
in the Rio Declaration. To start with the latter, population is linked with production and consumption. On the one hand, developing countries have been concerned that their
See Sebenius, 1991.
I2} Committee of Climate Change, National Research Council, 19S9, Ulobal Chan p nnd fur (T'nm.rnnn F,jturp Paners from a Forum National Academy
high population growth rates should not bear primary responsibility for global environ-mental problems. On the other hand, developed countries are reluctant to accept changes in lifestyle patterns that would be made necessary if what has been described as their 'unsustainable' patterns of production and consumption are made the primary focus of environment and development problems. Principle 8 of the Declaration links the two in the following manner: in order to achieve 'sustainable development and improve the quality of life for all people' it recommends that states should reduce and eliminate unsustainable patterns of production while at the same time promoting appropriate demographic policies This ensures that taking steps on both groups of activities become part of the agenda.
More specifically, in the two Conventions the transfers of technology and the provision of new and additional resources are promised in return for the fulfilment of commitments by developing countries. In the Biological Diversity Convention access to genetic material in linked to access to biotechnology by the country providing the resource. This linkage, however is inadequately dealt with in the Convention.
Conclusions
The international community can expect to see much negotiation and policy (both international and domestic) oriented activity that follows up on the areas implicated by Rio. One of the more obvious of these is that of negotiations for the development of protocols or other arrangements that will defitie clearly and put into practice actual instruments that will make the functioning of the conventions possible. These include, amongst others, areas such as equity determinations, emissions standards, the definition of new and agreed incremental costs, technology transfer and intellectual property rights and issues of liability and compensation.
A clear picture of the cumulative impact of the UNCED process will probably take years to come to light. The mechanisms that Rio has attempted to put in place are complex and are related to many different areas of international relations. The
functioning of the global economy, lifestyles of people all over the world; the very process of development itself could conceivably see significant changes, even perhaps before the end of the decade. For this to happen, however, it is necessary that
governments demonstrate a will to deal cooperatively with the issues involved.
References
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Committee of Climate Change, National Research Council, 1989, Global Change and Our Common Future, Papers from a Forum, National Academy Press, Washington DC.
Ghosh, P and Jaitly, A, 1992, Legal Liability Vs. Administrative Regulation: the Problem of Institutional Design in Global Environmental Policy, paper presented in this Seminar.
Gilpin, Robert, 1987, The Political Economy of International Relations, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.
Henkin, Pugh, Schachter and Smit, 1989, International Law, Cases and Materials, Second Edition, West Publishing Co., St. Paul, Minnesota.
Mathur, Ajay, 1992, 'Political Issues in the Formulation of a Climate Change Convention,' paper presented at the Global Forum, Rio de Janerio, June.
[71 Noronha, Ligia, 1991, 'Background Note on the INC Negotiations,' Tata Energy Research Institute, New Delhi.
Rawis, John, 1971, A Theory of Justice, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Sebenius, James, 1991, 'Designing Negotiations for a Successful Regime,' International Security, Spring 1991 (Vol. 15, No 4).
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C Suriyakumaràn Honorary Adviser to the Government of Sri Lanka
Introduction
UNCED, 'Brazil 92', the Earth Summitthese were the words by which the UNCED (United Nations Conference on Environment and Development), decided upon by the United Nations General Assembly, was described, and which came to an end in June
1992. Its stated purpose, from the beginning, was clear enough. It was to confront seriously the impending ecological disaster, possibly even collapse, that the Earth was facingon the one side by the uncontrolled development of the North and on the other, by two phenomena or factors for the South, one present, the other impending. The first factor was the ongoing and threatened pollution of the environment from its
overwhelming poverty, accompanied by unbridled population growth. The second was that, if the South developed as the North has, there would result an unbearable addition to the toll on the Earth's resources and to its carrying capacity, as to spell disaster for all of us together. The Earth, after all, was the source of all resources, and the sink of all wastes.
The Conference was styled as being on environment and development. The means for attaining what was required for both these ware encased in the catch word popularised by the Brundland Report named after the Prime Minister of Norway who headed the Commission called 'sustainable development'. As if also to distinguish itself from the Stockholm Conference of 1973 on the Human Environment, the Earth Summit '92 was advertised as emphasizing development for the developing countries, as much as environment for all. Even in 1973, after a brief flirtation with the developing
countries, in order to attract them to Stockholm, that (like labour intensive industries in economics) the poor countries would have a chance to attract 'pollution intensive' industries, the whole matter was set right when Indira Gandhi simply declared at that Conference that for the poor countries poverty was the greatest pollution, and development its sole answer. Thereafter UNEP (the United Nations Environment Programme) invented words like 'eco-development', giving a lot of satisfaction, though nobody clearly knew what it meant; and 'development without destruction', though there is never any development, let alone existence, without destruction', until Brundtland came along and said 'sustainable development'.
Even this last phrase, around which the entire Earth Summit was in fact drummed up, was without clear definition or methodology, too often, in practice, interpreted to mean the mere elimination of poverty for the poor countries, with no 'strategy' for real development alongside a sustainable environment. This indeed was the 'Achilles heel' of the Brundtland slogan of 'sustainable development', and held the seeds of the weakness of UNCED.
'In other contexts, this writer has quoted the 'trinity' of the Vedantic Reality as of 'Creation, Preservation and Destruction', as the Buddhist Doctrine of 'Impermanence', and the Gospel (of St. John) in which the seed must fail and be destroyed before tmay live again.