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Vol. 16 No. 3 Sep. 1995 Sect 5 Page ThirdWorld Quarterly, Vol 16, No 3, 1995 Greeningthe United Nations: environmentalorganisations and the UN system KEN CONCA Environmentalproblems cry out for effective international governance. Pol- lution,habitat destruction and ecosystem degradation offer stark evidence of humanpower to transform the earth. 1 Thereare goodreasons todoubt the effectivenessof centralised, hierarchical schemes of`planetary management’ , andto worry about the political and social implications of such efforts. 2 But in aworldwhere environmental damage and its social consequences ignore borders,substantial and effective international cooperation is essential. Ithas beenover two decades since the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environmentplaced environmental problems on the global agenda. The period sincethe Stockholm meeting has witnesseda ¯urryof environmentaldiplomacy bygovernments. The list of multilateral environmental agreements has grown dramatically;states havecrafted accords on problems as diverseas ocean pollution,acid rain, climate change, the ozone layer, the trade in endangered species,biological diversity, the hazardous waste trade and environmental protectionin Antarctica. 3 The1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development( UNCED),heldon the 20th anniversary of the Stockholm confer- ence,saw over150 governments gather in Riode Janeiroto endorse Agenda 21, anambitious plan to promote ecologically sustainable development into the 21st century. Nevertheless,it is dif®cult to avoid the conclusion that the problems are outpacingthese displays of interstate cooperation. The effectiveness of most majorinternational agreements remains to bedemonstrated;most fail to grapple withthe underlying political, economic and social practices that create environ- mentalharm. Similarly, without clear political and ® nancialcommitments from mostof thegovernments that endorsed it, Agenda 21 isbeingtransformed from anambitious plan of actioninto a tacitadmission of failure. As MostafaTolba, formerexecutive director of theUN Environment Programme ( UNEP),suggested in 1992: Iamobligedto reportto governmentsand the public that progress has slowed. The commitmentto set up ministries and to enter into international agreements has not alwaysled to an equal commitment to action. Environment Ministries exist, but theirrole in nationaldecision-making is frequentlymarginal. Agreements have been enteredinto freely, but the will to enforce them has often been lacking. Thereis a paradoxhere. On the one hand public concern has been growing steadily,as manifested by the growing power and in¯ uence of ª greenconsumersº ¼Onthe other hand, the pace of government action has faltered. 4 0143-6597/95/030441-17 Ó 1995Third World Quarterly KEN CONCA Thereare severalreasons forthe ineffectiveness of stateresponses. Sovereignty fragmentspolitical authority, creating well-known barriers to internationalcoop- eration.5 Environmentalproblems also challenge states toevolve new scienti® c andmanagerial capabilities, much as thesocioeconomic crises ofthe industrial revolutionforced the evolution of the welfare state in industrialised societies. Theseproblems are exacerbatedby economic globalisation and the growth of transnationaleconomic power, which make it harder for states tocontrol effectivelyor regulateenvironmentally harmful economic activities. Perhaps the biggestobstacle is thatstate power historically has beenclosely tied to environ- mentaldestruction, in both industrialised and post-colonial societies. The econ- omicimportance of natural resource extraction, the links between territorial controland sovereign recognition, the power that ¯ owsfrom the ability to assign propertyrights and de® ne patterns of access tonatureÐ for all these reasons, moststates emergedhistorically from elite social bargains that have allowed for, oreven demanded, dramatic forms ofenvironmental transformation. Whenstates proveunwilling or unable to respond, nonstate actors represent hopefor change. Paul Wapner describes two processes bywhich environmental organisations,and nongovernmental organisations ( NGOs) moregenerally, may exertpolitical in¯ uence in world politics. 6 First,and most obviously, they may beable to pressure, cajole, or otherwise in¯ uence states. But NGOs may also in¯uence values, social behaviour and collective choice more generally among largegroups of people-creating a formof `world civic politics’ in which state behaviourbecomes less centralto collective choice. This formulation is not unlikethe two forms ofin¯uence attributed to internationalorganisations, which mayserve as institutionsthat shape the pattern of state-based bargaining, or as facilitatorsof broaderprocesses ofglobaldialogue, value convergence and social transformation. Inthemore than two decades since the Stockholm conference, environmental organisationsand the United Nations system haveevolved a complexand multidimensionalrelationship, with many forms ofengagement emerging on manylevels. Both partners in the relationship contribute to this complexity. Environmental NGOsforma complex,multifaceted and often divided com- munity.Similarly, even as theUN plays an important role in fostering inter- nationalenvironmental dialogue and cooperation, its specialised agencies often behavein ways that constitute a signi®cant part of the problem. Environmentalorganisations and the UNsystem: anoverview Beforethe Stockholm conference, environmental organisations played only a limitedrole within the United Nations, just as theworld organisation itself playedonly a limitedrole in environmentalmatters. The conservation of natural resources was madepart of the constitutional mandate of theFood and Agricul- tureOrganization ( FAO),althoughits emphasis on natural resource production andextraction severely curtailed its environmental focus. The UN Educational, Socialand Cultural Organization ( UNESCO)playedan important role in the 1948 formationof the International Union for the Conservation of Nature ( IUCN), a bodywith governmental and NGO af® liates.7 IUCNin turnspun off an important 442 ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANISATIONS AND THE UNSYSTEM environmental NGO,theWorld Wildlife Fund ( WWF),as anindependent fund- raisingbody in 1961. 8 Othernotable pre-Stockholm activities included the InternationalGeophysical Year from 1957 to 1958, IUCN’sFirstWorld Confer- enceon National Parks in1962and UNESCO’sBiosphereConference of scienti®c expertsin 1968. 9 TheStockholm conference marked a watershedin UN deliberations on the environmentand in the engagement of environmental NGOswiththe United Nationssystem. Both the conference itself and the preparations for it raised internationalawareness. 10 Stockholmalso led to the formation of the United NationsEnvironment Programme ( UNEP),a smallbut at times effective body headquarteredin Nairobi. In addition,Stockholm framed two of thecore debates thatdominate international environmental politics to this day: sharp disagree- mentsover the relationship between environment and development, and govern- mentalresistance to pressures thatstates compromisesovereign authority over naturalresources andecosystems withintheir territory. Stockholmwas alsoa milestonefor international environmentalism. Environ- mental NGOsgatheredin unprecedented numbers; 134 organisations engaged in theof® cial proceedings, with many more involved in the protests, networking, consciousness-raisingand other `unof® cial’ activities linked to theconference. 11 Stockholmalso marked the transition from a movementdominated by relatively depoliticisedconservation groups to one heavily in¯ uenced by the `new environ- mentalism’of the1960s. 12 Finally,nongovernmental organisations at Stockholm re¯ected the pervasiveness of North± South divisions: southern NGOs accounted foronly about 10% of those participating. 13 Sincethen, as theUnited Nations has becomea moreimportant forum on environmentalmatters, environmental organisations have become more involved inseveral ways and on several levels. They lobby in the diverse bodies that makeup the United Nations system, from the specialised agencies to broader forumssuch as theUN Conferenceon Tradeand Development ( UNCTAD) and the Economicand Social Council ( ECOSOC).Environmentalorganisations also shape thepositions of member states throughdomestic pressure and,increasingly, transnationalefforts. NGOsalsoprovide information, analysis and value-based interpretationsthat shape how problems, interests and solutions are de®ned. Finally,environmental organisations are playinga growingrole in delivering services atthe local, regional and even national level, receiving and administer- ingUN funds in the process. Withinthe United Nations system, these various forms ofengagement take placeon several levels: in specialised agencies and other functional bodies withinthe system; inrelations with UNEP;inthe various global conferences, internationalmeetings and intergovernmental bargaining sessions thathave occurredunder UN auspices; andin the recently formed Commission on SustainableDevelopment, a high-levelbody within ECOSOC chargedwith moni- toringthe implementation of UNCED’sAgenda21. Itis dif®cult to estimate the number of environmental organisations engaged withthe United Nations in thesevarious ways. One reason is thefuzzy boundary betweenthe environment and other issue areas. Many,but not all, of the larger andmore in¯ uential NGOsde®ne themselves as `environmental’in relatively 443 KEN CONCA narrowterms. But it is oftenimpossible to say wherean environmental organisationends and one dealing with
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