Stockholm 1972 and What It Made India Do

Principle 1 is the one Indian courts have used. It is the textual origin of the reading of Article 21 that produced the right to a wholesome environment.

The Indian sequence, with dates

Worked example

A student is asked why the Water Act 1974 applies only in some States and the Air Act 1981 applies everywhere. The answer is a Stockholm answer.

The Water Act was passed in 1974, two years after the Conference but before anybody had thought to rely on Article 253. Parliament used Article 252 instead, which lets it legislate on a State subject only for those States whose legislatures pass a resolution asking it to. Twelve States did so, and the Act came into force in them. Other States adopted it later, and a State that has never resolved is not bound.

The Air Act was passed in 1981, and its preamble says that decisions were taken at the Stockholm Conference in which India participated to take appropriate steps for the preservation of the natural resources of the earth, which include the preservation of the quality of air. That recital brings the Act within Article 253, so it applies to the whole of India by its own force and no State resolution is needed.

The Environment (Protection) Act 1986 followed the same route, with the same recital, which is why section 1(2) can say simply that it extends to the whole of India.

What it does NOT mean

It does not mean the Declaration is binding law in India. A declaration of a conference is not a treaty and creates no obligation enforceable in an Indian court. What it does is supply the constitutional occasion for Parliament to legislate under Article 253, and a principle a court may use in interpreting the resulting statute.

It does not mean India had no environmental policy before 1972. It had forest policy, and it had the Fourth Five Year Plan, which contained a chapter on environmental planning. What it did not have was a statute whose object was the environment.

It does not mean Stockholm caused the Act of 1986 directly. Fourteen years separate them, and the immediate cause of the Act of 1986 was the Bhopal gas leak of December 1984. Stockholm supplied the constitutional route and the vocabulary; Bhopal supplied the urgency.

Limits and criticism

The Stockholm story is told so often that two qualifications are worth having ready.

The first is that the Conference itself was a compromise between industrialised and developing States, and Principle 21's sovereign right to exploit was the price of Principle 21's responsibility not to cause damage. India's own position at Stockholm, stated by the Prime Minister, was that poverty is the greatest polluter, and that position continued to shape Indian environmental policy for decades.

The second is that the Indian legislative response was slow and reactive. Two years to the first Act, four more to the constitutional amendment, nine to the Air Act and fourteen to the general Act, which arrived only after the worst industrial accident in history had happened in Madhya Pradesh.

Quick revision

• Stockholm, June 1972, twenty-six principles. Principle 1 is the right to an environment permitting dignity and well-being.
• Article 253 lets Parliament legislate on a State subject to implement an international decision, and Stockholm is that decision.
• The Water Act 1974 used Article 252, not 253, which is why it binds only consenting States.
• The Air Act 1981 and the Environment (Protection) Act 1986 both recite Stockholm in their preambles.
• Articles 48A and 51A(g) came in 1976, by the Forty-second Amendment.
• Stockholm supplied the route; Bhopal supplied the urgency.

Test yourself

1. What exactly does Article 253 allow, and why did the Environment (Protection) Act need it? It allows Parliament to make a law for the whole or any part of India for implementing any treaty, agreement or convention with any other country, or any decision made at an international conference, association or other body. The Act of 1986 needed it because much of its subject matter, including water, public health and sanitation, is in the State List, and without an international decision to implement Parliament could not have legislated on those subjects for the whole country.

2. Is the Stockholm Declaration enforceable in an Indian court? Not by itself. It is a declaration, not a treaty, and it creates no directly enforceable right. Its legal work in India is threefold: it supplies the Article 253 occasion for the statutes, it is recited in their preambles and so may be used to construe them, and its Principle 1 was the source of the reading of Article 21 that produced the right to a wholesome environment.

3. Why is it wrong to say Stockholm caused the Environment (Protection) Act 1986? Because fourteen years separate them, and India had already legislated twice in the interval. The immediate cause of the Act of 1986 was the escape of methyl isocyanate at Bhopal in December 1984, which demonstrated that the country had no general power to regulate a hazardous industry, no power to close one, and no coordinating authority. Stockholm made the Act constitutionally possible; Bhopal made it politically necessary.