For further resources about the WSSD see below . See the post-WSSD commentary by Victor Menotti, director of IFG'S Environment Program.

A brief overview

A decade after the Rio Earth Summit there is nearly unanimous agreement among participating countries and organizations that the outcome has been a failure. The Rio processes have not achieved any of their goals, and some of the most notable undertakings, as in the area of climate change, have been profoundly disappointing.

Mohammed Al-Ashry, chairman of the Global Environmental Facility (GEF), the body charged with overseeing Rio's goals and agreements, freely acknowledged the failures, saying they are rooted in a lack of "political will to pursue sustainable development at the level that was required to reverse past trends." But such statements miss a fundamental point: as long as global institutions and national governments simultaneously attempt to pursue economic globalization, no goals for a healthy planet, or equity and justice for people, are remotely achievable. Globalization, trade and investment designs and structures reinforce a model of development - centered on free trade, hyper economic growth, and export-oriented production - which is inherently unsustainable in ecological and social terms. They also destroy viable localized and regional systems that may have the greatest long-term promise for future sustainability.

Bureaucracies such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and agreements such as the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), are the driving engines for the global economy. They are increasingly making the work of the Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs), including the products of Rio, irrelevant and subordinate to global trade and investment rules.

The directives and enforcement mechanisms of the WTO, and other trade and investment bodies, are invariably biased toward market principles. They favor free trade and a deregulation process that promotes maximum freedom for global corporations to exploit the planet's last remaining resources without regard to environmental consequences to water, soil, air, other natural resources, the atmosphere or human communities. Wherever there have been efforts by nation-states or regional governments to exercise some control on corporations they have been routinely overpowered by the rulings of the WTO and other bodies. As a result, governments that have joined both the globalization process, and the UN Rio processes, are finding it impossible to serve both masters. Instead, they choose globalization with all that it brings.

While it was wonderful that Rio + 10 attempted to breathe new life into its basic agreements its chances for long-term success are next to nil if nations remain caught in the present double-bind, which prevents even those willing to act on behalf of nature from doing so. The root causes of the present global environmental malaise do not only reflect a failure of "political will," they are also caused by a fundamental loss of national powers to operate in the best interests of nature or human beings. The activities of the IFG in the meetings in Johannesburg August and September, 2002, were focussed on an attempt to reveal this problem to as wide an audience as possible.

For more information about events related to the WSSD go to our events page.

For analysis and reporting please refer to the lnks below:

• Read a paper prepared by Third World Network entitled Why Trade and Finance Groups Should Get Involved in the WSSD Process..
• See Friends of the Earth International's position paper entitled Towards Binding Corporate Accountability.
• Download the Draft Plan of Implementation for the World Summit on Sustainable Development. (This is a pdf file)
• Download IFG co-Director Debi Barker's article, that appeared in the July/August 2002 issue of Tikkun Magazine, A Decade After the First Earth Summit, There is Little to Celebrate. (This is a pdf file)
• Download Friends of the Earth International's Comment Paper sent to Professor Emil Salim, Chairman of WSSD, in response to his Chairman's paper which was released May 9th. (This is a pdf file)
• Much in-depth information can be found at the UN website for the summit and the Rio Plus 10 website.
• View the Dialogue Paper by Indigenous People prepared by the Members of the CSD Indigenous Peoples's Caucus invited as an organizing partner of the Dialogue Segment, for indigenous people.
• See Environmental Justice for All - Even Tuvalu! by the Sierra Club's Michael Dorsey, first printed in Outreach (a daily publication from the Stakeholder Forum, at the fourth preparatory meeting for the WSSD).
• View The Battle of Bali, a report by Third World Network researcher Yin Shao Loong about the fourth preparatory committee meeting for the WSSD.
• Go to a segment of BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest, Vol. 2, No.11, entitled: WSSD Prepcom Fails on Trade, Some Progress on Fisheries and MEAs.
• To see a paper by Victor Menotti, the IFG's environment project director, go to his article From Doha to Johannesburg. Also read his paper Exporting Enron Environmentalism: The Bush Vision for Johannesburg.
• View the African Civil Society's Declaration on the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), NEPAD: We Do Not Accept NEPAD!! Africa Is Not For Sale!!
• Read an article by Patrick Bond of the National Institute for Economic Policy on NEPAD from the ZNet Sustainer Program.
• See Declaration on Africa's Development Challenges and Reflections on the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) by the Council for Development and Social Science Research in Africa, based in Dakar, and Third World Network - Africa.
• Read an article by Odour Ongwen on New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD): Planting Sterile Seeds.
• View an article by the Wildlife and Environment Society (WESSA) on The Environment and NEPAD.
• Read the Heinrich Boll Foundation's Jo'burg Memo - Fairness in a Fragile World: A Memorandum for the World Summit on Sustainable Development.
• Read NEPAD: Foothold for Corporate Globalization in Africa by Antonia Juhasz, project director for the IFG.
• See the calendar of events happening before and during the WSSD meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Further Information on the UN:

• Official Information on the UN
• Official Information on the UN Global Compact
• Citizens' Analyses of the UN Global Compact

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