Abstract :
The Brundtland Report (1987) is always worth re-reading. From p 316 onwards, the Brundtland Commission sought to establish leadership and coordination within the UN. Using diplomatic language, it was clearly irritated by the failure of most, if not all, UN initiatives to promote sustainability and to establish high-level centres of leadership and expertise linked to the much manipulated programme and budget allocation process. The Commission saw the need for a powerful supervisory function for all this coordination at the very apex of the UN. The Commission allocated a UN Board of Sustainable Development (p 318) with the capacity to assess, advise, assist and report on progress made and needed on sustainable development. The Board should be chaired by the Secretary General with supreme powers to create interagency commitment and coordination to sustainable development.
In the event, the 1992 Rio conference fudged it. The Commission on Sustainable Development is a lower rank body with limited powers to coerce and cajole the cumbersome UN process. Whether it can manage to bring the 180-odd states into line remains to be seen. Yet it is in place and countries are reporting. What remains inevitably unclear is whether the UN system as a whole really knows what sustainable development actually means for democracy and civil rights and what it takes to achieve it. Tim OʹRiordan and Andrew Jordan
