Draft International Covenant
on Environment and Development:
3rd Edition presented to the Member States of the United Nations
on the occasion of the 59th Session of the UN General Assembly
Third Edition: Second Revised Text, 2004
published as Environmental Policy and Law Paper No. 31 Rev. 2
by the
Commission on Environmental Law of IUCN - The World Conservation Union
in cooperation with
ICEL - International Council of Environmental Law
Download pdf-format: English
(680KB), Errata
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FOREWORD
to the third edition
The Draft Covenant is a blueprint for an "international framework (or umbrella) agreement consolidating and developing existing legal principles related to environment and development. The intention is that it will remain a "living document" until - as is the hope and expectation of those who have been involved in the project - it is adopted as a basis for multilateral negotiations.
In line with this approach, a second edition of the Covenant was prepared only three years after the publication of the original version. It was presented to the Member States of the United Nations on the occasion of the closing of the UN Decade of International law, on 17 November 1999.
Despite the fact that less than five years have elapsed since publication of the second edition, there have been important new developments in the field of international environmental law and development at the start of the new Millennium justifying yet another review of the Draft Covenant.
This is why the IDCN Commission on Environmental Law (CEL) and the International Council of Environmental Law (ICEL) convened a small meeting of experts from 10 to 11 March 2003 in Bonn, at the IDCN Environmental Law Centre. The main purpose of the meeting was to assess the impact on the Covenant of the results of the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD), especially on the matter of implementation of international agreements. At the same time, it was considered desirable and convenient to revise the Covenant text as a whole to take account of other international law developments relevant to the Covenant which had occurred since the last revision. To facilitate the updating process, the meeting scrutinised a number of important new treaties and soft law documents, including the Johannesburg Declaration and Plan of lmplementation.
As a result of this wide-ranging review, various changes were made to the text of the Covenant. Special care was taken to update it with respect to the 'social and economic pillars' and thereby avoid falling into the trap of concentrating solely on the 'environmental pillar'. The nature and extent of the changes made to the text, naturally led to a revision of the Commentary after the meeting.
At the outset of the meeting, most participants were of the view that the overall shape and content of the Covenant should remain untouched and that the text itself would only require minor revisions. As the discussion went along, however, participants found more and more points of detail that were in need of adjustment, thus expanding the number of changes beyond what was originally anticipated. In short, the extent of the changes made to the Covenant have more than justified the convening of the review meeting and the decision to distribute this third edition of the Covenant.
From another angle, the fact that the Covenant text has undergone another round of substantial revision demonstrates not only that the body of environmental law continues to grow, but also that its underlying legal principles are becoming ever more strongly established. By making sure that these developments are reflected in the text, the meeting fulfilled another one of the Covenant's important functions - namely, to serve as an authoritative reference and checklist for legislators, civil servants and other stakeholders worldwide in their endeavours to ensure that principles and ruIes of international environmental law are thoroughly addressed when they are drafting new, or updating existing, policies and law.
Following past practice, the names of the participants in the March 2003 meeting have been inc1uded in the roster of contributors. Thanks go to all of them for their input during and after the meeting. Thanks are also due to the Chair of CEL, Nicholas Robinson, and the previous Chair, Parvez Hassan, for their continued strong interest and faith in the Covenant.
A special expression of gratitude goes to Dinah Shelton for her willingness to continue serving as Rapporteur for the third edition and for taking on the onerous tasks of preparing the revised version of the Covenant in order to reflect the decisions taken at the meeting and revising the Commentary accordingly.
Last but not least, we gratefully acknowledge the support of the Elizabeth Haub Foundations (Canada), which made this meeting possible, as well as of the UN for enabling members of the UN Secretariat, in particular the Office of Legal Affairs, to participate actively in the review.
Wolfgang E. Burhenne
Steering Committee Member, IUCN Commission on Environmental Law
and
Executive Governor, International Council of Environmental Law
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