News

Helen Clark. (UN Photo)

A high-level forum at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio2012) offered this week an opportunity to debate how to measure the social progress of the countries and the whole world without merely depending on economic indicators, and assessing at the same time the damage caused by human activities to the well-being of the future generations.

Five leading civil society international networks urged the European Union (EU) head of State and Government to “demonstrate a commitment” to ensure at Rio2012 “that policies and practices pursued” within and outside the bloc “are consistent with the principles of sustainable development”.

by Roberto Bissio

Twenty years ago, the concept of “sustainable development” was adopted at the highest level in Rio de Janeiro to simultaneously aim at preserving the planet for future generations and promoting a sound development to meet the needs of the present ones. Twenty years after, the volume of international trade has multiplied by five and the per capita world income has doubled to around ten thousand dollars a year. And yet sustainable development is far from being achieved. Increased resources has not accelerated poverty reduction and instead social inequality is on the rise in most countries, North and South, while the unsustainable production and consumption patterns have already overstepped several “planetary boundaries.”

“Human rights considerations have no place” in the discussions of the Group of 20 (G20), “nevertheless their actions have significant impacts on the realization and enjoyment of human rights,” and the members of the bloc “cannot disregard their human rights obligations in any forum, including multilateral economic institutions,” warned the initiative "A bottom up approach to righting financial regulation" in its fourth issue.