Email
Twenty years after the first Earth summit in Rio, there is a growing recognition that unless countries actually deliver on the promises they make at great events such as Rio+20, their words – as St Paul put it – may be as "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals".
Civil society in its numerous forms is determined to make its voice heard at side-events in Rio. Twenty years ago a group of Yanomami Indians, all sporting their distinctive lip-stretching bangles, gripped the attention of the conference with their plea for the rights of indigenous peoples.
The most important side-event in 2012 may be the first-ever gathering of the chief justices of the world's supreme courts – the Unep-organised World Congress on Justice, Law and Environmental Sustainability.
Supreme court justices from all over the world (including the UK) met on Sunday night in the splendour of Rio de Janeiro's own Tribunal di Justiça to make it absolutely clear that environmental rights were part and parcel of the rule of law, to be enforced alongside, and indeed as a component of, basic human rights.
One of the most remarkable speeches was given by Ricardo Lorenzetti, the supreme court chief justice of Argentina. He made it absolutely clear that in his view it was the duty of the judiciary to stop the politicians reneging on their promises, or the "no-regression principle". Once a human right has been admitted, including the right to a decent environment, it cannot be reversed. "The key role of the judiciary is that we do not depend on election," he said.
Mr Kwon Jae-Jin, Korea's minister of justice, gave a graphic account of how his country had cleaned up the rivers and waterways by using the full force of the law against polluting industries.
Prof Nicholas Robinson, a former chairman of IUCN's Commission on Environmental Law, said: "It is probably utopic to expect that judges by themselves will be able to solve the environmental problems of the planet. But too bad for the planet if it doesn't have the judges on its side."
Achim Steiner, Unep's executive director, told the gathering that good governance nationally as well as internationally was one of the key themes at Rio+20. "Citizens have to be able to take their own governments to account for failure to uphold commitments they have entered into," Steiner said.
The present draft of Our Common Vision, part of the overall text negotiators in Rio are working on, states: "We encourage action at regional, national, sub-national, and local levels to promote access to information, public participation, and access to justice in environmental matters, as appropriate." The chief justices of the world's supreme courts, assembled in their own congress in Rio this week, will be working hard behind the scenes to ensure that its language is not watered down any further.
• Stanley Johnson's new book: Where the Wild Things Were: Travels of a Conservationist will be published by Stacey International in July
Comments
19 June 2012 1:47PM
The view from the snug is that whilst the sentiments are most honorable we cannot really see how it would work?..
19 June 2012 2:34PM
Non-democracy seems to be the key to environmental progress.
19 June 2012 4:07PM
This is all so very comforting.
Especially an Argentenian giving instructions on political behavior.
19 June 2012 6:52PM
Since politicians make the laws, it is in the end difficult for lawyers to call the shots other than in the short term.
And quite apart from that, I'm sure the last thing the world needs is even more f*cking lawyers.
19 June 2012 9:24PM
This is all very well, but in the UK we have seen people trying to protect the environment treated badly by the law mob. They have even refused to allow them to explain their actions. For example.
19 June 2012 9:55PM
Here´s what a working legal system does :
http://annamiticus.com/2012/06/19/interpol-operation-nets-two-tonnes-illegal-elephant-ivory-200-suspects-arrested/
20 June 2012 9:04AM
Yes, let us pass some laws to make manifesto promises binding.
While we are at it, a few laws abolishing poverty and making world peace compulsory would be good , too!
Yes, they have all gone to Rio to work hard.....as one does.
20 June 2012 6:06PM
Let us tell to Mr.Steiner that the developed world; the industrialized countries have failed to create a society more just because more wealthy. Mr Steiner can't get the support of a Woman like Eva Joly who used to be judge because she comes out of a country as corrupted as USA or Russia. For 30 years France like the whole utilitarian world adopted the concept of Justice of John Rawles and we are stucked unfortunately in the situation where the different actors of the world can't compromise to make a fairer world. The philosophy of utilitarianism, that of Rawles, gives the same weight to any individual in the world and then gives to the maffia that is to say the whole illegal economic activity the same weight that is given to the salaries and taxpayers. In our world selling drugs , cutting trees, or making the ice smelting is as good as holding a meeting with the supreme court of Mexico and shaking hands with Mrs Joly.