Week 4 - International Framework of Sustainable Development

 29 March 2023

    This week's class marked our 7th day of Ramadan. I am glad that our class is held online because the weather seems quite hot even in the morning. Today’s topic is more focused on the global conference that involves a few countries to discuss strategies for sustainable development. The first conference was in Stockholm in 1972 to address the issues of global environmental needs. The aim of the conference was international cooperation regarding the problem the earth’s environment was facing. Developing countries began to play a crucial role and their active participation is important because they were financially assisted to participate. Tremendous political pressure in developed countries thus protection for the environment became a political issue. Some of the countries that got involved in these conferences were in Sweden, Brazil, Japan, South Africa and Indonesia. 

In the process, certain basic principles were established, first common but differentiated responsibility for dealing with the environment. Second, the need to assist developing countries with finances and technology to address environmental problems. Third, the need to meet environmental and developmental needs. Last but not least, trade policy measures should not constitute arbitrary or unjustifiable discrimination. These principles carried over to the other treaties such as climate change, hazardous wastes, depletion of the ozone layer, persistent organic pollutants, long range pollution, preservation of biodiversity , desertification, these were all the subject of multilateral conventions.