50 years since Stockholm conference

50 years since Stockholm conference

• From June 5 to June 16, 1972, a conference to create a common governance structure for the planet’s environment and natural resources was held.
• The occasion was the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, the first such worldwide convergence on planetary environment, with the theme ‘Only One Earth’.
• When the participating 122 countries — 70 of them developing and poor countries — adopted the Stockholm Declaration on June 16, they essentially committed to 26 principles and an action plan that set in a multilateral environmental regime.
• This was the first globally subscribed document that recognised the “interconnections between development, poverty and the environment.”
• The three dimensions of this conference were:
  • Countries agreeing not to “harm each other’s environment or the areas beyond national jurisdiction”;
  • an action plan to study the threat to Earth’s environment;
  • and establishment of an international body called the UN Environment programme (UNEP) to bring in cooperation among countries.
• The result was the setting up of the Environment Ministry all over the world, with India setting up its ministry of environment and forest in 1985.

Stockholm declaration

• Earth’s natural resources, including air, water, land, flora and fauna, especially representative samples of natural ecosystems, must be safeguarded for the benefit of the present and future generations through careful planning or management.
• The discharge of toxic substances or of other substances and the release of heat, in such quantities or concentrations as to exceed the capacity of the environment to render them harmless, must be halted in order to ensure that serious or irreversible damage is not inflicted upon ecosystems.
• States shall take all steps to prevent pollution of the seas by substances that are liable to create hazards to human health, to harm living resources and marine life, to damage amenities or to interfere with other legitimate uses of the sea.
• The environmental policies of all States should enhance and not adversely affect the present or future development potential of developing countries, nor should they hamper the attainment of better living conditions for all, and appropriate steps should be taken by States and international organizations with a view to reaching agreement on meeting the possible national and international economic consequences resulting from the application of environmental measures.
• States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental policies, and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction.
• Most of today’s conventions related to planetary crises like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the whole environmental regime being implemented through the UN system trace their origin to the Stockholm Declaration.

Stockholm 2022

The world is all tuned in to Stockholm+50, themed as “Stockholm+50: A healthy planet for the prosperity of all — our responsibility, our opportunity.”