Brundtland, and the Sentence Everyone Quotes
Chapter Thirty
Syllabus topic 2, "Sustainable Development."
Pages 89 to 91 of 663
In one line
A commission chaired by the Prime Minister of Norway published a report in 1987 called Our Common Future, and one sentence in it became the most quoted definition in international environmental law.
In exam wording: the World Commission on Environment and Development, established by General Assembly resolution 38/161 of 1983 and chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, reported in 1987 in Our Common Future, defining sustainable development as development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, and recommending an international conference which became the Rio Earth Summit of 1992.
Why the Commission was set up
Because Stockholm had not settled the argument. Fifteen years after 1972 the developing States still said that the environmental agenda was a rich country's agenda, and the industrialised States still said that development without environmental limits was self-defeating. The General Assembly created an independent commission to find a formula both could accept.
The Commission had twenty-two members, a majority from developing countries, and it sat for three years holding public hearings on five continents. That composition is worth mentioning in an answer: the definition was not handed down by the industrialised world.
The definition, and what is inside it
The sentence is: "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs."
The report then says the definition contains within it two key concepts:
- The concept of needs, in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given.
- The idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organisation on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.
Almost every student quotes the first sentence and stops. The two key concepts are where the argument is. The first makes poverty an environmental question and gives the poor priority; the second makes the limit technological and social rather than absolute, which means it can be pushed outwards by better technology and better organisation. Both propositions are contested, and both are why the formula was acceptable to the developing world.
What else the report said, and what came of it
| Recommendation | What happened |
|---|---|
| A global conference to review progress | The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 1992 |
| A universal declaration and later a convention on environmental protection and sustainable development | The Rio Declaration 1992; the convention has never been made |
| An institution within the United Nations to oversee follow-up | The Commission on Sustainable Development, 1992, replaced by the High-level Political Forum in 2013 |
| Legal principles for environmental protection and sustainable development | Annexed to the report as twenty-two proposed articles, never adopted as such, but the source of much of the Rio Declaration |
Brundtland, and the Sentence Everyone Quotes
Worked example
An examiner asks for a critical assessment of the Brundtland definition. A candidate who only praises it has not answered.
In its favour. It made an agreement possible where none had been possible for fifteen years. It put the essential needs of the poor at the centre. It is short enough to be quoted and general enough to be accepted.
Against it. It defines development, not sustainability, so it tells nobody what may not be done. It says nothing about which needs count as essential, or who decides. It assumes present and future needs are commensurable, so that a loss now can be traded against a gain later, which some ecologists reject outright. And a formula everybody can accept is often one that requires nobody to change.
The measured conclusion. The definition is a framework for argument rather than a rule of decision, and its function in law has been to legitimate the balancing exercise courts now perform, which is exactly what the Court did in Gabcikovo-Nagymaros Project and what the Supreme Court of India did in Vellore Citizens' Welfare Forum v. Union of India, AIR 1996 SC 2715.
The strong and weak readings
A distinction worth carrying into an answer, because it explains why two people can quote the same sentence and disagree.
| Weak sustainability | Strong sustainability | |
|---|---|---|
| The assumption | Natural capital and manufactured capital are substitutable | Some natural capital is critical and cannot be substituted |
| What must be maintained | The total stock of capital | The stock of critical natural capital itself |
| Practical effect | A forest may be cleared if the proceeds are invested | A forest that sustains an ecosystem may not be cleared at all |
| Where the Brundtland formula sits | Compatible with either, which is its strength and its weakness |
What it does NOT mean
Brundtland is not a legal instrument. It is the report of a commission. It binds nobody and never did.
It is not the origin of the idea. The International Union for Conservation of Nature's World Conservation Strategy of 1980 used "sustainable development" first. Brundtland gave it the definition that stuck.
It did not resolve the North and South argument. It supplied a form of words both could accept, which is a different thing, and the argument continued at Rio and continues in the climate negotiations.
Quick revision
- The World Commission on Environment and Development, created by resolution 38/161 of 1983, chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, reported in 1987 as Our Common Future.
- The definition, and the two key concepts: needs, especially of the poor, and limitations of technology and social organisation.
- It recommended the conference that became Rio 1992 and annexed twenty-two proposed legal principles.
- Weak and strong sustainability are two readings of the same words.
- The formula is a framework for argument, not a rule of decision.
Brundtland, and the Sentence Everyone Quotes
Test yourself
1. Quote the definition and name its two key concepts. Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The two key concepts are needs, in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, and limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organisation.
2. Give two criticisms of the definition. It defines development rather than sustainability, so it prohibits nothing; and it leaves undecided which needs are essential and who decides, so it can be invoked by both sides of any dispute.
3. What is the difference between weak and strong sustainability? Weak sustainability treats natural and manufactured capital as substitutable and requires the total stock to be maintained. Strong sustainability treats some natural capital as critical and not substitutable at all.
The rest of this subject
These notes are cut from the University's printed syllabus. Open the syllabus itself, or the past papers, for the same subject.