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Disarmament
Disarmament campaigns are almost
always identified with the objective of peace. But
there is another argument for working to reduce weapons
worldwide: the nearly 900 billion dollars spent every
year on weapons and arms research mean fewer resources
are available for sustainable development, and thus
threaten the environment.
The United
Nations Department for Disarmament Affairs issued
a warning shortly before the World Summit on Sustainable
Development, alerting the international community
that the rise in military spending shifts important
financial, material and human resources towards non-productive
sectors.
Furthermore, the trend of spending
more on weapons -- reaching levels not seen since
the Cold War -- also implies a latent threat to the
environment and to the social and economic development
of nations, says the UN
disarmament entity on its Internet site.
Global efforts for disarmament
target weapons of mass destruction, like nuclear bombs,
and conventional weapons alike. Concern about this
topic is evident on the Internet,
where numerous web sites provide information about
different groups' strategies and mechanisms aimed
at halting the arms race.
There are international agreements
on disarmament and weapons non-proliferation, such
as the Tlatelolco
Treaty signed by Latin American countries that
the region will not accept nuclear weapons. Nevertheless,
regional conflicts proliferate around the world, and
some are even global in scope, and could potentially
involve nuclear arsenals, even more harmful than their
manufacture or trade.
Disarmament issues also cover
small and light weapons, of which there are an estimated
500 million existing around the world, according to
the Brazilian web site Desarme.org. Each year, such
weapons are used in killing a half-million people,
200,000 of whom are victims of homicide, other crimes,
suicide and accidents.
United
Nations & Disarmament
UN:
Disarmament mission
UN
Institute for Disarmament Research
UNIDIR
disarmament links
NGO
Committee on Disarmament
Agency
for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America
and the Caribbean (OPANAL)
The
Acronym Institute
Nuclear
Disarmament Partnership
Yahoo!:
web sites about disarmament
After the Johannesburg
Summit
The World Summit on Sustainable
Development drew 104 heads of state, 9,000 delegates,
8,000 representatives of non-governmental organizations
and 4,000 journalists, according to the official count.
But what did the event produce?
Most of the press dispatches
coming out of Johannesburg on Sep 4, the last day
of the Summit, reported on the reactions to the event's
final outcomes. While the organizers expressed satisfaction,
civil society representatives criticized the lack
of commitments made by the governments.
The Summit's official
website reflects part of the official reaction.
In response to criticisms about the lack of concrete
proposals for action, United Nations Secretary General
Kofi Annan stated that Johannesburg was not the end
of a process, but rather, "It's
the beginning."
During the 10 days that the delegates
were gathered in the South African city, there was
a great deal of inspired press
coverage, heated debate, and numerous websites
dedicated to the WSSD. Much of that activity halted
when the Summit was over, although there will surely
be commentaries, analysis and evaluations for months
to come about one of the biggest international conferences
ever held.
In the meantime, the Internet
is a source of information about the outcomes of the
Summit. Still available on the worldwide web is the
digital version of the daily TerraViva,
which circulated in its print version during the WSSD,
as is the UN's own Internet coverage "WSSD Live".
Digging through the official
site, one can also find, in PDF format, the final
published versions of the Johannesburg Declaration
and the Plan
of Action signed by world leaders at the close
of the meeting.
And other websites already have
posted their comments about the Summit. "I am
satisfied that what has been delivered is a step forward,"
says Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the United
Nations Environment Program (UNEP),
acknowledging that the negotiations were very difficult.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF),
meanwhile, points out that no effective plan was reached
for sustainable development, and wonders about the
ability of future multilateral efforts to eradicate
poverty and protect the environment. Greenpeace,
for its part, titled its Spanish-language dispatch
about the results of Johannesburg: "Nothing for
the poor, nothing for the environment."
Political
Declaration
Action
Plan
UN
Press Release on Water and Sanitation Agreement
Official
WSSD Website
TerraViva/IPS:
an unofficial record of the Summit
UNEP
Chief Comments on the Summit
UN:
WSSD Live
UN
Secretary General: "This is just the beginning."
Yahoo!
Coverage: Stories and links
Greenpeace
International: Perspectives on WSSD
WWF:
The Future of Multilateralism
Environmental Accords
and Commitments
Global conferences on environmental
topics bring together governments - and often their
top leaders - to hammer out agreements that entail
a commitment to sustainable development. This is the
aim of the Johannesburg Summit, but it was also a
key issue at previous meetings.
The United Nations-sponsored
World
Summit on Sustainable Development, in the South
African city, has its precedents in the UN
Conference on the Human Environment, held in Stockholm
in 1972, and the UN
Conference on Environment and Development, which
took place a decade ago in Rio de Janeiro.
In 1972, the governments participating
in the Stockholm meet signed an important Declaration
of Principles. This served to put the issue on
the world agenda and established humanity's responsibility
in preserving the environment. Thirty years ago, that
was an innovative proposal.
At the end of that first environmental
summit, a plan of action was also adopted. It outlined,
among other things, goals for evaluating environmental
impact and for providing education about the importance
of conservation.
Two decades later came the international
conference in Rio, also known as the Earth
Summit, which introduced the notion of sustainable
development as a central element in the strategy to
save the planet.
In Rio de Janeiro, it became
evident that it would be difficult to negotiate agreements
related to the environment because countries had different
priorities and strategies. Even so, at the end of
that summit, in which more than 100 heads of state
and delegations from 170 nations took part, five important
documents were signed.
These five conventions are considered
a landmark achievement, even though there are valid
doubts about the political will of some governments
to achieve the established goals.
The Earth Summit produced the
Rio
Declaration, in which the first principle states:
"Human beings are at the center of concerns for
sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy
and productive life in harmony with nature."
The 1992 summit also produced
the Convention
on Biological Diversity, the Declaration
of Principles on Management, Conservation and Sustainable
Development of Forests, and the Framework
Convention on Climate Change, whose texts required
intense negotiations.
But perhaps the most important
document was the Agenda
21, an action plan for achieving sustainable development
in the 21st century. The text clearly sets forth the
main challenges entailed in reaching that goal, and
outlines actions to do so.
One of the objectives of the
Johannesburg Summit is to assess compliance with the
actions laid out in Agenda 21. However, over the last
several months, evaluations
have been published that show the international community
is far behind keeping those goals.
World
Summit on Sustainable Development - Johannesburg
UN
Conference on the Human Environment - Stockholm
Stockholm
Conference Declaration
1992
Earth Summit - Rio de Janeiro
Rio
Declaration on Environment and Development
Agenda
21
Convention
on Biological Diversity
UN
Framework Convention on Climate Change
Declaration
of Principles on Management, Conservation and Sustainable
Development of Forests
UN
Secretary-General's Report on Implementing Agenda
21
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