As a plenary organ of the UN, the General Assembly has invoked its principal instrumentality of resolutions to address a variety of global problems. The mirage of being called “recommendations” ...(Article 11, the UN Charter) has never come in the way of finesse with which the Assembly has invoked its resolutions to zero in on contemporary common concerns. The 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) adopted by resolution 70/1 (September 25, 2015) has been one such major global action plan that became a milestone in a long line of engagements that have also carried the normative halo. Now at the mid-way to the 15-year cycle (2015–2030), the performance assessment on 17 Goals shows that the promise of leaving “no one behind” is in peril. In view of the reality of the world we live in and multiple interconnected planetary scale crisis situations, the UN member states have floundered in giving effect to the promises laid down in the 17 Goals of the 2030 Agenda. The UN Secretary-General’s report (April 27, 2023) has called for a resolute rescue plan for people and planet. The progress came to be reviewed at the SDG Summit convened by the UNGA President during September 18-19, 2023. The available data (Revised Zero Draft of June 8, 2023), underscored the gravity of the peril faced by the humankind since, out of 140 targets, “only about 12 per cent are on track; more than half, although showing some progress, are moderately or severely off track; and some 30 per cent have either seen no movement or regressed below the 2015 baseline”. The Political Declaration adopted at the New York SDG Summit coinciding with the meeting of the High-Level Political Forum, sought to work out a rescue plan considering the UNSG’s stimulus plan and taken the “pledge to act now, for present and future generations”. This article examines the process, the promise, the pledge and the rescue plan for the SDGs in peril.
The Stockholm+50 Conference (2-3 June 2022) has been perceived as a low-key affair and a missed opportunity. The moral halo that ushered the world into global environmental consciousness, led by the ...Prime Ministers of Sweden (Olof Palme) and India (Indira Gandhi) at the first UN Conference on the Human Environment (UNCHE) held in Stockholm (5–16 June 1972) seemed to be missing at the 2022 Stockholm+50 Conference. This historic event coincided with the 30th anniversary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The Stockholm+50 event, jointly hosted by Sweden and Kenya, ended as a ubiquitous joint Presidents’ Final Remarks to the Plenary issued by the two host countries. In spite of the call for action by the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to address the “triple planetary crisis” driven by climate emergency, biodiversity loss and pollution and waste, the Stockholm+50 outcome took the shape of ten-point summarized recommendations. It didn’t cause any ripples or resulted in a clarion call that could shake the conscience of peoples and nations to arise for everting the existential planetary crisis. The 2022 Stockholm+50 Moment at best remained a timid acknowledgement of things going terribly wrong in the past fifty years (1972–2022). Yet, no world leader stepped forward to don the mantle “to rescue” the world from the “environmental mess” as urged by the UNSG in his 2 June 2022 inaugural address. The heads of government and delegations seemed to lack the requisite courage befitting the momentous occasion for a decisive course correction in the global environmental regulatory policies, legal instruments and the environmental governance architecture. What would it entail to address the planetary crisis? It brings to the fore some lessons from the 2022 Stockholm+50 Moment that presents an ideational challenge for scholars of International Law and International Relations as well as the UN system, multilateral environmental treaty processes, international institutions and the decision-makers of the sovereign states.
The UNGA has raised the bar while "Recognizing that sustainable development, in its three dimensions (social, economic and environmental), and the protection of the environment" as well as recalled ..."all Human Rights Council resolutions on human rights and the environment" including the identical resolution 48/13 of October 08, 2021 and 50/9 of July 07, 2022 (human rights and climate change). Both the discourses with a panel of eminent scholars and practitioners sought to: (i) explain the context and significance for rejoicing the UNGA's (and the HRC) emphatic recognition of the human right to (clean, healthy and sustainable) environment for the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 as well as "related to other rights and existing international law" (ii) normative value of the UNGA resolution for the universality of the environmental human rights (iii) impact of the human right to the sustainable environment on treaty-based international environmental and human rights obligations, observance of human rights of the individuals and inanimate objects as well as domestic policies, legislations and litigations. The Human Right to Sustainable Environment: Emerging Trends: (vi) The End-of-Waste for the Transition to Circular Economy: A Legal Review of the European Union Waste Framework Directive (Oskar Johansson); (vii) Environmentally Sound Technologies for Climate Change Mitigation in BRICS Countries: A Comparative Policy and Legal Perspective (Niharika S. Bhattacharya et al.); (viii) The Inaction in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Some Policy and Legal Issues (B. E. Kooffreh et al.); (ix) The Environmental Fund Management Model in Indonesia: Some Lessons in Legal Regulation and Practice (Lastuti Abubakar et al.).
Since the recognition by the UN General Assembly resolution 43/53 (6 December 1988) that “climate change is a common concern of mankind” as well as adoption of the UN Framework Convention on Climate ...Change (UNFCCC) at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit, climate change has emerged as one of the most pressing global environmental challenges. The IPCC AR6 (April 2022) curated scientific evidence has explicitly observed that “Net anthropogenic GHG emissions have increased since 2010 across all major sectors globally.” The cumulative effect of GHG emissions appears to exacerbate the abnormal weather events, melting the polar ice caps and cause other cataclysmic climatic changes. The effects of climate change transcend territorial boundaries and continents. It has provided a normative basis for the concerted international law-making process underneath the existing UNFCCC led global regulatory regime. It designated climate change as a common concern of humankind. The resultant soft normativity has been shaped into the hard law through the trajectory of three international legal instruments that took the forms such as common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (1992 UNFCCC) to international legal commitments only for Annex I countries (1997 Kyoto Protocol) and the nationally determined commitments by the parties (2015 Paris Agreement). This study has sought to place under scanner the graded evolution of the climate change regime through the in-built law-making process premised upon a common concern of humankind. In the aftermath of the UN Secretary-General’s warning about climate emergency as part of “triple planetary crisis”, it is high time the international law scholars, the UN General Assembly and the UNFCCC regulatory process shift into the higher trajectory of climate change as a planetary concern.
The idea of the revival and repurpose for the United Nations Trusteeship Council (UNTC) is pragmatic one to meet the needs of the changed times. Such repurpose entails entrustment of a new mandate to ...the revived UNTC that constitutes evolution of the trust in the global domain. It will be crucial restructuring and evolution of the UN with an understanding that there are places, territories, and areas known as ‘global commons’ that require special and careful nurturing for our better future. In a new avatar (form), the TC would in essence reflect the ‘sacred trust’ with a ‘new mandate.’ From a scholarly perspective, such a move eminently makes sense since it could bring to life an entity within the UN and provide a big push to make the UN relevant for the needs of the present and future generations. It will essentially serve as a guardian of the global ‘common concerns’, ‘common heritage of mankind’ and the global environment. In the changed context, the UNTC need to serve as a trustee for betterment of the humankind and for the survival of the planet earth. The new mandate for the environment and the global commons could strengthen the UN and vindicate one of the core purposes for which the ‘United Nations’ came together in 1945 with a solemn resolve “to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained”.
