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international conventions — English
Strictly speaking the term refers to a large, formal assembly (or conference) of a group of states with a common interest. The common interest might be political, militaristic, economic, and so forth, and from the second half of the 1900s the environment has become one of the most concerning interests of all nations and states. Numerous international environmental conventions have been assembled since then. The United Nations (UN) obviously plays a huge role in organising and funding these conventions. At these events, high-level political and/or scientific representatives of almost all the states in the world are mandated to convey their respective states’ view on global environmental issues. In many cases the heads of state themselves represent their states’ interests, but they are, of course, advised by a panel of scientists and diplomats. Owing to the authority vested in the representatives, all decisions made and ratified (that is, agreed and signed) are legally binding on all the signatories. Some represented organisations or states might decide not to ratify the decisions, and they are, of course, not compelled or forced to do so. Environmental lobbies, power groups (or activist groups) and non-governmental environmental organisations (NGOs) are regularly present in force at these conventions, but their signing rights are often restricted and their ratification of decisions cannot legally bind any state to the decisions made. These conventions are extremely important opportunities for environmental lobbies, activists and NGOs to lobby and propagate their viewpoints about the environmental issues they are involved in. Some of the more well-known environmental or economic or political organisations that never miss an international convention, are Green Peace, the International Nuclear Event Organisation (INEO), the British Standards Institute (BSI), Earth Life Africa, the European Union (EU), the Environmental Protection Agency of the USA (EPA), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the International Standards Organisation (ISO), the International Committee on Radiation Protection (ICRP), the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the Group of Seven (now Eight) which includes the seven (or eight) most powerful economies in the world, the BRICS countries (see ”developing countries”), the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the United Nations Environmental Protection Agency (UNEP or UNEPA), the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNESCO, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the International Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the Wildlife and Environmental Society of South Africa (WESSA), and many, many more. Some of the most famous international environmental conventions are the Stockholm Declaration of 1972 where it was decided that states should co-operate to develop international law regarding liability and compensation for environmental pollution; the Maastricht Treaty and the Lomé Conventions number I to IV of the late 1980s which were attempts at advancing international co-operation on environmental regulations; the Ramsar Convention of 1971 on the international co-operation to protect (see “wetlands”); the Montreal Protocol of 1987, where the industrial scale use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) was banned; and the Basel Convention of 1989 which was an attempt to regulate the cross-border transport of hazardous (especially radio-active) waste. The single most well-publicised (and probably the largest) international environmental convention ever held was the UN Conference on Environment and Development (colloquially known as the “Earth Summit”) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 (see “environmental justice”). The most important resolution decided on at that conference was the Convention on the Protection of Biodiversity, which was later refined and incorporated into a very important document, called Agenda 21. At the Earth Summit serious discussions commenced about limiting the volumes of carbon dioxides and other greenhouse gasses the different economies (states and certain groups of states) may annually release into the atmosphere. However, little progress was made since the poor, developing countries and the rich, developed countries could not come to any agreement. However, once aired, the issue could not be avoided or suppressed any longer. It led to a conference in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997. There it was decided that every state would be allowed a certain amount of air pollution in that each respective state is allocated a specific volume of greenhouse gasses that may be released into the atmosphere annually. The so-called “carbon quotas” allocated to a number of the highly developed, industrial states were not acceptable to all of them, notably the USA, Australia, China and India. Consequently they did not ratify the protocol. The 10th anniversary of the Earth Summit took place in Johannesburg in 2002, but very little was achieved at this occasion except for an acknowledgement that the carbon quotas set in 1992 were probably unrealistic. From the examples listed above, it is clear that the word “convention” is often replaced by “declaration”, “summit”, “agreement”, “treaty” or “protocol”, so it could be somewhat confusing. It is advised that the word “convention” be reserved to describe the actual meeting, debating and decision-making, while the other terms are reserved to describe the records of decisions made at the conventions. (See “international protocols”.)
