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Sustainable Development in International Environmental Law

ç. Johannesburg Conference
As a result of the failures in the implementation of the goals agreed at the Rio
Conference; the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development,
also called Rio+10, was held with the participation of 191 governments
and various international organizations, businessmen and scientists in
Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2002 (Sun 2021:335; Scalar 2015:54-55). Thus,
it marked as the first conference to use the sustainable development in its
name (Tıraş 2012:64). The summit determined the implementation of the
decisions taken at the Rio Conference as the main agenda item, while focused
on taking the measures necessary for the implementation of the agreements
adopted at the Rio Conference but failed to be applied, updating the will for
sustainable development and identifying the development strategies for the
future (Güneş 2021:335; Kaya and Ek 2021:82; Skalar 2015:55).
Contrary to the sceptical attitudes of developing countries towards
sustainable development at the Stockholm and Rio Conferences, the
international community agreed, for the first time at the Johannesburg
Summit, to hold a global summit on how to approach the dilemma of
environmental protection and the right to development (Scalar 2015:55). As
a result of the negotiations at the summit, the Johannesburg Declaration on
Sustainable Development and the Johannesburg Action Plan, which are not
legally binding, were published (Boyar 2020:1935). These documents were
criticized for their legally non-binding natures, failing to take decisions to
progress the principles defined in Rio Conference further, failing to concretize
the sustainable development and absence of expressions regarding the
implementation of sustainable development. On the other hand, one of the
most important results of the Summit is that many countries became parties to
previously prepared international environmental treaties at this Summit (such
as Canada and Russia being parties to the Kyoto Protocol) (Güneş 2021:336).
In the final report of the conference, only international cooperation for
sustainable development was touched upon, instead of the sovereignty rights
of states over natural resources. In addition, as expressed in Johannesburg
Sustainable Development Report “(...) we assume a collective responsibility
to advance and strengthen the interdependent and mutually reinforcing
pillars [elements] of sustainable development - economic development,
social development and environmental protection - at the local, national,
regional and global levels”, economic development, social development and
conservation of the environment was specified as the pillars of sustainable
development (Boyar 2020:1935; Skalar 2015:56). In this context, achieving
sustainable development is only possible by combating poverty, abandoning
unsustainable habits in production and consumption, and protecting natural
resources.

Year 2 / Issue 3 / January 2023 47