(1995)
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The UN Commission on Sustainable Development held its third meeting in New York, April 1995. This was a Commission meeting rather than a World Conference. The pomp was not as pompous, but the circumstance was as significant as any UN meeting. The agenda focused on land degradation, desertification, forests and biodiversity; patterns of consumption, financial resources, and technology transfer. The Commission is said to be developing a new international Convention on Sustainable Development, but a new strategy is being used. Other Conventions have been developed through a long series of Commission meetings until they are complete. Then they are presented to the world at a World Conference, as was the case with the Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Convention on Biological Diversity. Maurice Strong's strategy is to get individual nations to develop their own sustainable development plan, all of which are developed within the framework of Agenda 21, so that when the Convention on Sustainable Development is finally completed, most of the nations will already be doing what the Convention calls for. Until the Convention is complete and ratified, the sustainable development programs within individual nations will be authorized by national law. When the Convention is ratified, the programs will come under the authority - and under the regulatory and enforcement procedures - of the United Nations. |