ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT PLANS AT THE INTERNATIONAL LEVEL

The environment has recently become an important agenda to the world community, so much so that the first United Nations (UN) Conference on Human Environment held at Stockholm, Sweden, in June 1972, was participated in by many countries worldwide. The Stockholm Conference produced 106 recommendations and 26 Principles under the Stockholm Declaration (1972), which led to the establishment of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the Environment Fund. It should be noted that in the said Conference, no agenda on international environmental management had been included, although its mechanisms could help prevent, rectify, and alleviate environmental problems.

In 1992, the United Nations convened the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED, or the Earth Summit), at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 3–14 June 1992. It was the largest environmental conference ever organized by the UN with over 30,000 participants, 103 of whom were at the level of Heads of State or Government and high-ranking officials representing 176 countries.

The Conference produced the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development and Agenda 21, which is the first international environmental management plan widely adopted by countries around the globe. Under Agenda 21, a country's development will proceed jointly with proper environmental management under the concept of sustainable development. In its large part, Agenda 21 proposes concrete implementation of sustainable environmental management in harmony with the 27 Principles of the Rio Declaration.