Rio Declaration on Environment and Development

The Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, often shortened to Rio Declaration, was a short document produced at the 1992 United Nations "Conference on Environment and Development" (UNCED), informally known as the Earth Summit. The Rio Declaration consisted of 27 principles intended to guide countries in future sustainable development. It was signed by over 170 countries.

History

The international community met twice to assess the progress made in implementing the principles of the document; first in New York in 1997 during a General Assembly Session of the UN, and then in Johannesburg in 2002. While the document helped to raise environmental awareness, evidence shows that little has been achieved in the document's environmental goals.^[1]

Content

The Rio Declaration proclaims 27 principles. It includes formulations of the precautionary principle (principle 15) and of the polluter pays principle (principle 16).

See also

• Three generations of human rights

References

1. Palmer, Robert; Nursey-Bray, Melissa (2007). Robbins, Paul, ed. Encyclopedia of Environment and Society. 4. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications. pp. 1512–4. ISBN 9781412927611.

External links

• UN Documentation Centre The full text of the Rio Declaration.
• Text of the Declaration at the Center for a World in Balance.
• Introductory note by Günther Handl, procedural history note and audiovisual material on the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in the Historic Archives of the United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law