How the Concept Evolved

In one line

Six meetings and one report, in a straight line from 1972 to 2022, and each one added something the previous one lacked.

In exam wording: the concept of sustainable development evolved through the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment at Stockholm in 1972, which produced the Stockholm Declaration and its twenty-six principles; the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future, in 1987, which supplied the definition; the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development at Rio de Janeiro in 1992, which produced the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change; the World Summit on Sustainable Development at Johannesburg in 2002; the Rio+20 Conference in 2012; the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development with its seventeen Sustainable Development Goals, adopted in 2015; and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted by decision 15/4 of the Conference of the Parties in December 2022.

Stockholm, 1972

The first United Nations conference on the environment. India was represented by the Prime Minister, and the conference is the reason the Indian environmental statutes exist: the preambles to the Water Act 1974, the Air Act 1981 and the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 recite decisions taken at Stockholm.

What it added. That the environment is an international concern, and that protecting it is a responsibility of States. Principle 1 links environmental protection to human rights. Principle 2 requires the natural resources of the earth, including representative samples of natural ecosystems, to be safeguarded for the benefit of present and future generations. Principle 4 speaks of a special responsibility to safeguard and manage wildlife and its habitat.

What it lacked. A way of reconciling protection with the development that poor countries needed.

The Brundtland report, 1987

Our Common Future, the report of the World Commission on Environment and Development chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland.

What it added. The definition. Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, with priority to the essential needs of the world's poor and recognition of the limits imposed by technology and social organisation.

Why it mattered. It made protection and development one question instead of two, and it is the sentence every examiner expects.

Rio, 1992

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, the Earth Summit.

What it produced. The Rio Declaration with twenty-seven principles; Agenda 21; the Statement of Forest Principles; the Convention on Biological Diversity, opened for signature there on 5 June 1992; and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The principles a student must name. Principle 3, the right to development fulfilled so as to meet the developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations. Principle 4, that in order to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it. Principle 7, common but differentiated responsibilities. Principle 10, participation, access to information and access to judicial and administrative proceedings. Principle 15, the precautionary approach, where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation. Principle 16, that the polluter should in principle bear the cost of pollution.