Foundations of Sustainability

• Author: Scott Fulton and Antonio Benjamin
• Position: General Counsel of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency/Justice of the High Court of Brazil (STJ). The views expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of either the government of the United States or of Brazil
• Pages: 32-36

Page 32 ❧ THE ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM Copyright © 2011, Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, D.C. www.eli.org.

Reprinted by permission from The Environmental Forum®, Nov./Dec. 2011

Foundations of Sustainability

What are the core elements of sustainable development? In the

run-up to the 2012 U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development, two

long-time leaders in the area, coming from countries with dierent levels of

industrialization, put their emphasis on national governance systems

and ecosystem services, implementation will depend

on eective national and subnational environmental

governance. Without good governance, neither global

nor domestic aspirations can be realized.

Increasing international recognition of the impor-

tance of national and local environmental governance

to sustainable development has been reected in a va-

riety of international instruments, including the 1992

Rio Declaration and the Plan of Implementation

from the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Devel-

opment. Here, we seek to reanimate this thinking by

giving greater context and detail to the precepts of na-

tional environmental governance and by pointing to

the central role of such precepts to the environmental

pillar of sustainable development.

ere have been many eorts to address individual

features of environmental governance, for example, by

training environmental inspectors, prosecutors, and

judges. ese eorts, while quite valuable, are often

isolated and can miss the importance of addressing

environmental governance as a system comprising a

number of inter-related and reinforcing parts. is

system includes environmental laws, implementa-

tion mechanisms, accountability regimes, and insti-

tutional arrangements. Together, these elements, if

appropriately resourced, provide the foundation for

environmental protection and conservation of natu-

ral resources, in support of sustainable development.

ey are also key to the emergence of the rule of law in

the environmental arena — a state of being in which

there is the presence of, respect for, and observance of

environmental norms. Indeed, the ingredients of en-

In her seminal 1962 work Silent Spring, Rachel

Carson presented a key question to the pres-

ent generation: How can the benets of mod-

ern society be enjoyed in a manner that avoids

endangering public health and the natural re-

sources upon which humanity’s future depends? In

the years since, countries around the world, with

dierent legal systems and dierent levels of devel-

opment, have rened and expanded this concept.

e U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development

in June 2012 marks the 40th anniversary of the

1972 Stockholm conference, the rst major U.N.

environmental conference, the 20th anniversary

of the Rio de Janeiro Conference on Environment

and Development, and the 10th anniversary of

the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable

Development. e 2012 event oers a propitious

moment to take stock of that progress and to ask:

What are the ingredients that have made for suc-

cess in sustainable development in the past several

decades, and how can we reinforce these factors in

a world of rapid change?

e U.N. Conference on Sustainable Development

will have two themes: a green economy in the context

of poverty eradication and sustainable development;

and the institutional framework for sustainable de-

velopment. Since the 1992 Earth Summit, eective

national and local environmental governance has in-

creasingly been recognized as key to the second theme

and to fullling sustainability aspirations. Likewise,

while green economy discussions have focused on a

range of issues including renewable energy, eciency,

Scott Fulton is the General Couns el of the U.S.

Environmental Protection Agency and Antonio

Benjamin is a Justice of the Hig h Court of Bra-

zil (STJ).The views expressed ar e those of the

authors and do no t necessarily reect the vie ws

of either the gover nment of the United States or

of Brazil.