The Earth Summit 1992

The United Nations conference on Human Environment held in Stockholm on 16th June, 1972 was the first global environmental conference. It identified the goal of establishing a global partnership among the states at the levels of societies and people. The conference recognized the integral and interdependent nature of the earth and decided to work for international agreements to protect the global environmental and development system.

On the twentieth anniversary of the Stockholm Conference, from 3-14 June 1992, Rio de Janeiro hosted the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). The conference focused at the state of the global environment and the relationship between economics, science and the environment in a political context . The conference concluded with the Earth Summit, at which leaders of 105 nations gathered to demonstrate their commitment to sustainable development.

The purpose of the conference was to coordinate international policy for the solution of global environmental problems. A 27-nation committee held four meetings in the two years preceding the conference, and in the months leading up to it they issued a report calling for "a major reorientation of man's values and redeployment of his energies and resources. " In the initial report, the committee emphasized the requirement of setting the political priorities because of the intricate interdependence of the global environmental problems.

At the conference, the environmental issues such as the protection of air, land and water as well as conservation of bio-diversity, forests, and natural resources, and management of wastes and technology were taken up for discussion.

A Convention on Climate Change and a Convention on Biodiversity were signed at the conference. The delegates also reached agreement on Agenda 21, an action plan which called for sustainable development through the twenty-first century. All the attending nations accepted a 27-clause statement of principles called the Rio Declaration.

The declaration is a non-binding statement of broad principles to form global environmental policy. An overview of the principles agreed upon and outlined at the conference has been presented here.

The conference proclaimed that the human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development and are entitled to live a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.

Also that, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the international law, the states have the sovereign right to exploit their own resources to develop their indigenous environmental and developmental policies, and have the responsibility to ensure that activities within their territory do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. The conference also stressed upon the states to equitably meet developmental and environmental needs