CIESIN Thematic Guides

UNCED

The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) was held from June 3 through June 14, 1992, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The conference was the culmination of two years of negotiations by the Preparatory Committees (PrepComs). Five major agreements on global environmental issues were signed. Two of these, The Framework Convention on Climate Change and The Convention on Biological Diversity, were formal treaties whose provisions are binding on the parties. The other three UNCED agreements were non-binding statements on the relationship between sustainable environmental practices and the pursuit of social and socioeconomic development. Agenda 21 is a wide-ranging assessment of social and economic sectors with goals for improving environmental and developmental impact of each. The Rio Declaration summarizes consensus principles of sustainable development, and the Statement on Forest Principles pledges parties to more sustainable use of forest resources.

The Academic Council on the United Nations (ACUNS) produced a "Guide to UNCED and its Documentation", which describes the negotiating process for the major agreements and highlights some of the most important documents produced during negotiations (Halpern 1993). In "Appraising the Earth Summit," Haas, Levy, and Parson (1992) evaluate UNCED as part of the broader policy process, in which the principle of sustainable development has become a central concept.

A collection of UNCED documents is available here and from a number of sources on UNCED. The documents include those from the four PrepComs; speeches by the secretary general of UNCED, Maurice Strong; versions of the major UNCED documents; and some of the national reports submitted by more than 100 countries as part of the preparatory process.