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Sustainable Development in International Environmental Law

The concept of sustainable development, despite its conceptual ambiguity
we strive to explain, which is defined in the most explicit way in the above-
mentioned Brundtland Report as “the development that is capable of providing
the daily needs, without compromising the nature’s ability to respond to the
needs of future generations”, represents the compromise between the zero
growth approach which asserts that there will be no livable environment in
case of minimising the economic growth, and the traditional development
approach that prioritize economic growth neglecting the ecological and social
requirements (Klarin 2018:68) (Turgut 2017:94, Güneş 2021:87). Sustainable
development law, as a whole, is the legal principles, decrees, legislation
and legal instruments regulating the areas of intersection between social,
economic and environmental law in order to achieve sustainable development
(Skalar 2015:65).
1.2. The Emergence of Sustainable Development Principle

1.2.1. Historical Development
The sustainable development concept, which is already defined here and
was, for the first time, addressed at the international level in 1987 with the
Brundtland Report has distinguished itself in different ways throughout human
history with the need for sustainability (Skalar 2015:17). Although it is not known
when and where the concept of sustainability was first used, the need and
praise for sustainability was encountered even in Ancient Greece. According
to the myth, Gaia, the goddess of the Earth and nature, was addressed in
ancient stories in which the sustainability system was implemented by local
governments not neglecting their own areas, rewarding those who care for
these areas well and punishing those who do not (Kılıçoğlu 2005:10). In densely
populated civilizations of the ancient period such as Egypt, Mesopotamia,
Greece and Rome, environmental problems such as desertification, salinity
and soil inefficiency were experienced. Philosophers of that times such as
Plato, Strabo and Columella stated that human activities such as farming,
tree cutting and mining caused environmental degradation in parallel with
the requirements of the period (Bilgili 2017:560). Along with the impact of the
increase in the use of wood as a firewood and building material since the 16th
century, and consuming the timber intensively for ship building, mining and
other manufacturing works since the 18th century; Hans Carl von Carlowitz
asserted that the timber would be as important as the bread in those times
and should be used with great care (Gedik 2020:199).
Although in the classical economics period, when the foundations of the
development concept was established, it was a widespread idea that the
economy will be managed by an invisible hand and natural resources will not be
depleted, Malthus, Ricardo and Mill conducted studies on the limits of growth

Year 2 / Issue 3 / January 2023 39